


Messin' With Mister In-Between

by mad_mary_kidd (madmarykidd)



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Fingering, Bisexual Male Character, Emetophobia, Everyone is Bisexual, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Slow Burn, Smoking, Tickling, ad hoc field medicine, like reeeeaaaaally slow, spoilers for entire main quest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2018-06-06 17:55:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 66,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6764173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madmarykidd/pseuds/mad_mary_kidd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey is a mess. He drinks too much, and he flirts, and MacCready has no idea where he stands with him. But they both have kids to save, so they’d better damn well accentuate the positive and do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Might Be a Gold Watch

**Author's Note:**

> My thought was, that if MacCready is constantly pulling himself back from swearing, that he must still be thinking those swears all the time. Sometimes he slips, because he's human.
> 
> The first nine chapters of this (about 31,500 words) all happened in four days' worth of frenzied writing that came out of nowhere, so it's a bit stream-of-consciousness. Sorry. All of this is to get back into writing; it's been a long while since my ff.net days. None of this is beta-ed, so any mistakes - factual, grammatical or canonical - are mine.
> 
> EDIT: Originally I had planned to include some background Danse/Curie (I'm told the ship name is Dansie Pants), but this is rapidly becoming a monster all on its own, so I may do a spin-off Dansie Pants fic in the future. Soz!

 

It was difficult to eat with someone dry-heaving not ten yards away, so MacCready gave up in the end. Casey wouldn’t want any food at all, never mind a half eaten mirelurk cake, and it was a shame to waste it. However, MacCready’s usually voracious appetite had been struggling gamely for upwards of half an hour and it was time to call it. Casey would be fuzzy and miserable for the rest of the day now, MacCready thought as he pitched the rest of the mirelurk cake over the roof wall. It gave a small, dry splat as it hit the ground. Mercenaries liked to drink as much as anyone and MacCready was no exception; but ever since the incident in the Memory Den, Casey seemed to be on a one-man mission to rid the entire Commonwealth of all alcohol. Including that swill the Bobrov Brothers hilariously tried to pass off as moonshine; it wasn’t even _that_ good.

 

MacCready had seen the whole thing on the screen in Dr. Amari’s lab, so it wasn’t like he was mad at Casey. Hell, every time he so much as _saw_ a feral his whole skin seemed to want to crawl off his body and hide. If he had to watch Lucy die all over again, _he’d_ want to drink to forget it, too. Still, it had been a week and a half now, and all of Casey’s previous fire seemed to have vanished. His drive to make caps, and build up those stupid Minuteman settlements (a waste of time and money in MacCready’s opinion but hey, Casey was the boss), even his drive to find his kid had taken a back seat. If Kellogg had still been alive maybe Casey could have taken his renewed misery out on him, but _that_ asshole was splattered all over the floor of some bunker MacCready couldn’t remember the name of. After watching Casey watch the asshole shoot his wife in the head, he kind of wanted to find it again so he could go back down there and kick Kellogg’s corpse some more.

 

Honestly when it came to letting it all out, MacCready preferred violence to alcoholic self-pity, but that was him. _He_ would probably have gotten himself killed if he’d gone on a rampage, he supposed. Casey not so much; he seemed almost un-killable. _Unless he drinks himself to death_ , MacCready thought darkly, with a shiver. Perhaps self-destructive rampages came in more than one form.

 

Finally the retching stopped. MacCready waited a few moments and looked over.

 

“You want some water?”

 

Casey nodded. “Think it was something I ate,” he croaked.

 

MacCready snorted. “Yeah? I think it was something you drank,” he said, and pulled a can of purified water out of Casey’s pack. He punched a hole in the top with a knife and handed it over.

 

“Come on,” said Casey, croak becoming a whine. “Gimme a break.”

 

“What, you think _I_ never drank myself half to death before?” It was true; almost. He had drunk himself blind more than once in his youth - as if he wasn’t still _in_ his youth - back before he and Lucy had found each other in Big Town. He had wanted to drink himself blind after she’d gone, but by then there had been Duncan to think about. He sat back down and watched as Casey gave a tentative sip. For a moment it seemed like maybe it would work, but just as MacCready was about to open his mouth to suggest food, or maybe even moving off the roof and making some caps today, the water made itself known again. MacCready sighed.

 

“This water’s broken,” Casey coughed, after a moment. Well, at least he hadn’t lost his sense of humour.

 

~*~

 

They didn’t move at all that day. Casey slept it off while MacCready kept watch with his rifle. Nothing much moved below, fortunately. A band of raiders drifted past at about midday, making MacCready’s trigger finger itch. They didn’t even look up. Just one, MacCready might have taken on by himself but he knew from bitter experience that killing one of a group would only alert and rile up the rest. He wistfully watched them pass, taking their caps and weapons and ammo with them. He thought about the whiskey he’d hidden after Casey had passed out, and didn’t regret lying to him in the slightest. If Casey wanted a drink then they’d have to move off the roof.

 

It had started mundanely enough - just another job. “I’ve gotten word of another settlement that needs our help. I’ll mark it on your map.” Those words were starting to crop up in MacCready’s dreams, for fuck’s sake. He and Casey had found the raiders threatening Abernathy Farm with the help of the Pip-Boy, taken them out without too much trouble. The raiders had made quite a nice little sniper’s nest for themselves up here, but they’d taken almost no precautions against someone sneaking up from below.

 

 _Morons_.

 

Casey had suggested crashing there, once they’d pitched the last dead raider, stripped of his ammo and gun, over the edge. There were a couple of filthy mattresses and a fire pit with a cook pot suspended over it - pretty ritzy compared with some of the places MacCready had crashed in before. It had been starting to look like a nice little vacation, but then Casey had discovered the whiskey the raiders had left.

 

MacCready had joined him for a few, and then thrown some yao guai steaks on the grill in an attempt to get Casey to soak up some of the whiskey, but he’d been fighting a losing battle from the start with that one and he knew it. Casey had laughed longer and louder as the evening drew on, but it had been that kind of laughter with the brittle edge. MacCready had heard it before many times, from people who’d had just a few too many things flung at them by the Wasteland. Once or twice it had come from his own throat. MacCready had put the rest of the whiskey behind a stack of crates; if Casey asked about it, MacCready would tell him that he’d drunkenly dropped them over the edge of the building.

 

Casey was lonely, of course he was. He’d just been forced to watch his wife die and his son get kidnapped for the second time in what was, to him, only a few months. Not only that, but everyone else he’d ever known and could have gone to with his grief was two hundred years dead, too. Parents, friends, everyone. Anybody would want something to fill that void. Hell, MacCready knew that much from personal experience. Maybe the details were different but he shared with Casey the awful, impotent feeling of watching the woman you love being brutally killed and being completely unable to do anything about it. MacCready hadn’t told him about Lucy yet, but perhaps Casey sensed something in him that suggested deep melancholy, the kind that only the loss of someone close could produce. Maybe there was some kind of kinship between them, even if Casey didn’t completely recognise it for what it was. Maybe that was enough to explain why he had drunkenly tried to kiss MacCready last night, just before he had passed out.

 

They’d been sitting on the wall, feet dangling over the edge into space. Casey had been describing some stupid thing Captain TinCan had said, and MacCready had thrown his head back and laughed. He had looked back at Casey, both still grinning at Danse’s puppy-dog adoration of the Brotherhood, and then they had been close, and then Casey had moved in as if to kiss him, hand on MacCready’s jaw and everything; thumb brushing his cheek just like in the old movie posters.

 

The first time it had happened, MacCready had been able to kid himself into believing that they hadn’t really been about to kiss. The moment at the Mass Pike Interchange had been brief enough that he could pass it off as a slightly awkward congratulatory hug between friends, but this was different. Like before, MacCready had ducked his head and moved away, blushing like a teenager, but this time he had mumbled an apology. It was too much; Casey was still literally grieving for his wife, and honestly MacCready simply wasn’t ready to look too closely at this aspect of himself yet.

 

Bits of recent memory had been tapping him on the shoulder since the attempted-kiss, trying to force him to see the pattern. Casey taking point as they stalked toward Lexington and MacCready following behind, somehow unable to tear his eyes from Casey’s leather-clad ass. Casey flashing him a grin or a joke, and the resulting fluttering in his belly. Bending his head so Casey could light a cigarette for him, and finding himself gazing at Casey’s lips.

 

He scratched at the back of his neck, blushing into the dusty afternoon. Casey’s breathing was deep and even, with the occasional gentle snore. Something exploded in an orange bloom somewhere in the distance, but the resounding boom that shook the roof didn’t even make Casey turn over in his sleep. It wasn’t even just because of the alcohol; he slept like the dead, drunk or sober. MacCready envied him.

 

Then there was Lucy. What would she think if she could see her RJ now, on the roof of some half-collapsed building, thinking about maybe wanting to kiss a guy instead of trying to find that cure for Duncan? Even putting Duncan aside, as impossible as _that_ was, would she be hurt that he might like someone else? It had been almost four years. He hadn’t been with anyone else since, in any way, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t lonely. But it still felt like cheating.

 

It had all been going so well up until the Memory Den, MacCready reflected, miserably. When they met they’d hit it off immediately. He’d been about to follow Casey through the bar and up the steps out of the Third Rail when Charlie had called them back to offer them what he had called a ‘clean-up job’. Watching Casey break into the warehouses and sneak around ruthlessly murdering Triggermen while pocketing anything that wasn’t nailed down had been a hell of an introduction. Shortly after that they’d been the badasses of the Commonwealth, Raines and MacCready, kicking ass and taking names, making caps and enemies, buying what they could afford and stealing what they couldn’t. Casey had been a man on a mission, determined to find his son and make the most of the world he’d found himself in. For his part, MacCready had found himself in the middle of the wildest adventure he’d ever had, and it had felt like he could take on the world. He could even put up with the stupid Minutemen and their godawful fucking violin music, if it meant being by Casey’s side.

 

They’d taken out Winlock and Barnes almost effortlessly, even their assaultron (Casey had made short work of it with a couple of pulse grenades he’d pilfered from Jack Cabot). MacCready had been running on air - at last! Finally, free of the Gunners! In his wild joy he’d leapt on Casey and hugged him, unable to express his gratitude in words. After his initial surprise - and for a second MacCready thought he’d gone too far - Casey hugged him back, and then it had gone on just a little bit too long, and then they were slowly releasing each other, and MacCready’s heart was racing with more than just adrenaline after the fight, and then they were sharing breath, and then MacCready had ducked his head and moved away, laughing awkwardly. But even that moment of weirdness hadn’t taken the wind out of Casey’s sails. Nothing had, until Amari and her fucking lounger.

 

When they’d gotten word of where Kellogg was hiding out, the fire in Casey had blown itself up into an inferno. All their attention went on tooling up and regrouping to go kick the shit out of him, any weirdness between them completely forgotten. And they had found Kellogg’s hideout, got their asses kicked by some dickbag synths, changed tactics and kicked them right back, and then MacCready had seen first hand Casey’s rage at what Kellogg had done to his family.

 

It was like Casey became a whole different person, right before his eyes. If he’d been fired up before, it was nothing to what he was with Kellogg standing right in front of him. MacCready didn’t blame him, not even a little bit. If he could have had someone to blame for what happened to Lucy he’d have done the same, and he’d have laughed as he did it.

 

As it was, Kellogg nearly killed the both of them. They had charged in with too few Stimpaks, and used too many getting through his synth guards. Casey had been a bloody, broken mess when they finally dragged themselves up out of the bunker with his grisly souvenirs. The gun and the outfit MacCready could understand, but the piece of _brain_? With the wires attached? Wow. MacCready would never have dared suggest throwing it in the river, but after what happened in the Memory Den he almost wished he had. Sure, now they knew where to find this Virgil guy, not that it helped much, but along the way Casey had been forced to lose his family all over again. It had seemed to break him in a way that going through all of that once hadn’t done - with absolute finality. The drinking had started that very day - they’d gone straight from the Memory Den to the Third Rail, where Casey had made short work of almost a whole bottle of Bobrov’s. He’d liked to drink before, but it was nothing to this. Now, barely a week and a half later, Casey was a full-on alcoholic. 

 

Maybe he needed something useful to do. They couldn’t go to the Glowing Sea yet, with about half a bottle of Rad-X between them and not enough caps for even one hazmat suit. Maybe MacCready could ask him about Med-Tek. He didn’t want to have to ask for help, especially not from someone who’d already done so much for him, but he couldn’t allow his pride to stand in the way of his son’s health for much longer. And maybe it would be enough to make Casey want to get back out there and kick some more ass, make some caps.

 

It wasn’t even dark yet; he stifled a yawn. Casey couldn’t take a watch in his state but they were relatively safe up here, and nothing had moved at all in hours except the explosion in the distance. MacCready set his rifle up against the roof wall and stole silently over to the mattresses. Not that it mattered, he could have set up a one-man-band and it wouldn’t have woken Casey.

 

His dreams were fitful, stilted and confusing; Lucy cried while MacCready danced with a mirelurk in a mask, then he was shooting at supermutants who were also an army of synth-Shauns, and then he realised that either his gun was shooting blanks or the the super-synth-mutant-Shauns were immune to bullets, and Danse was tying Casey to some train tracks while Duncan watched and laughed…

 

~*~

 

He awoke and blinked blearily in the sunlight. As his eyes found their focus they lighted on Casey, sitting on the cinderblocks by the fire and stirring something in the pot. He still looked pale, or it might have been the light. He looked over to see that MacCready was awake and gave a sheepish smile.

 

“Hey,” he said.

 

“Hey,” replied MacCready, pushing himself upright and rubbing at his eyes. “You sleep okay?”

 

“Like the dead,” said Casey, oddly echoing MacCready’s thought from the night before. “Listen, I’m sorry for being an asshole.”

 

“You weren’t,” MacCready told him, though in truth he had mixed feelings about it. If Casey was talking about how he’d almost kissed him, he seemed reluctant to actually spell that out. MacCready hoped he wouldn’t.

 

Casey shook his head. “No, I was. I have been, since the last time we were in Goodneighbor.”

 

He meant the Memory Den specifically, but MacCready didn’t see the need to point this out. They both knew what he meant.

 

“You’ve been really nice about it, Bobby, and I’m sorry for putting you in that position. I think I just needed to get some things out of my system,” Casey continued, looking back into the pot as he stirred it. This was the second time they’d had this particular conversation, and MacCready doubted it’d be the last. He’d known alcoholics before; they were always about to turn over a new leaf. The pot smelled like some kind of stew; MacCready’s stomach growled.

 

“I think you got every last little thing out of your system yesterday,” said MacCready, coming over to sit next to the fire. The sun was bright but up here it was still cold. “Pretty sure you coughed up a gold watch.” Casey laughed and shook his head.

 

“Did you grab it? We could use the caps.”

 

“Gross. How do you feel now?” MacCready asked.

 

“Like I don’t deserve to have someone with me who cares enough to ask me that,” said Casey quietly.

 

“Hey, you can beat yourself up about it if you want to, but I’m not gonna help,” said MacCready, suddenly uncomfortable with the closeness implied in that statement, and leaned over to peer into the pot. “What is that, anyway? I thought we used up all the mirelurk.”

 

“Found something in a cooler that looked like radscorpion meat,” Casey explained, shooting MacCready a grateful smile that made the latter’s stomach flip over with something that definitely wasn’t hunger. _Not close, my ass_. “It didn’t smell too bad so I figured fuck it.”

 

“Pretty sure radiation is a preservative,” said MacCready. “I have no idea if that’s a good thing or not. So what’s the plan today, boss?” _Hope springs eternal_ , he added wryly to himself.

 

“I don’t know. Maybe kick around up here for a while. I’m kinda tired.” MacCready’s crest fell, but he had another tack he could try.

 

They ate the stew - carefully, in Casey’s case. It didn’t seem as though Casey remembered trying to kiss him the other night, so he decided to let it lie for now. He did take advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask about MedTek, however. Casey looked up at him, spoon halfway to his mouth.

 

“Bobby, why didn’t you tell me? We could have gotten the cure by now!”

 

MacCready rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I dunno, you have all your own stuff going on,” he started lamely. Casey frowned.

 

“Come on, you know I’ve always got time to help you if you need it,” he said. He sounded almost hurt. “And it’s not like I can do much about this Virgil guy right now. Fuck it, let’s go to MedTek. It’s the least I can do, after my behaviour the last few days.”

 

MacCready’s gut twisted. “That’s not why I asked you,” he protested, feeling guilty for manipulating Casey into moving his ass but also glad that it worked, but Casey was already grinning.

 

“I know it’s not,” he said, setting down his bowl. “But I really am grateful to you for not walking away and leaving my drunk ass to get eaten by ferals.”

 

“Come on, I would never have done that,” said MacCready. He looked over to see Casey gazing at him warmly, and his stomach flipped over again.

 

“I know you wouldn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from something a lot of people say where I come from, in response to a violent coughing fit: 'cough it up, it might be a gold watch'. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.


	2. Uranium Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That ol' uranium fever done and got MacCready down.

 

 

“You know, I never actually asked if I could call you Bobby,” said Casey, as they walked.

 

MacCready grinned. “It’s okay, I don’t mind,” he said, truthfully. Now, if Casey had wanted to call him RJ, that would have been a no-go. Only one person had called him that since Little Lamplight, and that was the way it would stay.

 

It was a shame - _RJ_ would have been kind of poetic, if MacCready could have stood to hear it. Casey’s own name was a play on his initials: Kaidan Clarke Raines. KC. Casey. _Casey and RJ_ had quite a ring to it, but dead was dead and that was that. Besides, he kind of liked ‘Bobby’. No-one had ever called him that before, and being given a new name felt a little bit like a fresh start. Another chance. And he liked the way it sounded in Casey’s mouth.

 

“What do you usually go by? Just MacCready?”

 

“Yeah, mostly. They used to call me RJ, back in Little Lamplight,” he added, before he really knew he was going to say it. “I don’t really like it, though.” It was almost true.

 

Casey grinned. “I thought they called you ‘Mayor’,” he said, and MacCready laughed.

 

“God, you would have hated me if you’d known me back then,” he said. “I was such a little shi - a little brat,” he added; he knew Casey had noticed this little habit of his before, and he had seemed curious but had never asked. MacCready had a feeling he might now, since there was a long way to go before they reached MedTek and not much else to do besides talk.

 

Sure enough, Casey cocked his head to one side. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask,” he started, and MacCready held up a hand to forestall him.

 

“The cursing? Yeah, I know. Look, it’s not like I think you’ll be offended,” he said. “I made a promise to Duncan that I’d try to be a better person. Pretty hilarious for a guy who shoots people for a living, I know, but still. I used to have a real potty-mouth, and Duncan always hated it, so I told him I’d clean up my language if he promised… If he promised to hold on until I got back with the cure.” The lump was forming in his throat again, and he swallowed against it. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes and a lighter, head tilted so that the brim of his hat hid his eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” said Casey. He sounded like he really meant it. If he did, he’d be the first. “Look, we’ll get that cure, okay? Don’t worry. Fuck, we got Kellogg, and he had synths. Buncha ferals ain’t shit.”

 

MacCready nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and lit his cigarette. The ferals weren’t shit, he knew that, but every time he saw one he was back in that subway tunnel all over again. Oh, he could talk big, but it didn’t stop his hands shaking. And now they would have to face a whole building full of the fuckers. He wondered whether he ought to mention his fear of ferals, but as he was about to open his mouth Casey nudged his elbow.

 

“Hey, you got the Rad-X?” He asked. “Sky looks a little green.”

 

MacCready patted his pockets. “Uhh… No,” he said after a moment.

 

“Shit. I thought I gave it to you?”

 

“No, we used it,” said MacCready, suddenly. He’d thought they still had some left in the bottle, but in a flash he remembered what had happened to it. “You didn’t want to walk all the way to the bridge, remember?” It was true; and Casey’s dismayed expression indicated that he knew it too.

 

“Ah, fuck,” he said with feeling. Last week they’d been on their way back to Sanctuary from Diamond City in as close to a straight line as they could manage. It had been hot, and Casey was hung over, and didn’t want to be on his feet for any longer than was absolutely necessary - even if it meant getting wet. They’d hit the river in the wrong place due to a navigational mistake, likely due to the hangover. Casey had sighed, popped a Rad-X, tossed the bottle with the last dose in it to MacCready and jumped into the water without a word. MacCready had broken his promise to Duncan quite a lot then, figuring that getting it all out of his system at once was maybe forgivable, before popping the last Rad-X and jumping in after Casey. How he’d forgotten that until just now was beyond him; getting wet was in his top three most hated things. He couldn’t swim for shit.

 

A sickly yellow flash split the sky in the distance now, and an odd cymbal-crash of thunder sounded soon after. Casey sighed. “We’ll just have to find some cover and hope it passes quick,” he said. Which would stop them getting wet, but not irradiated, but there was nothing they could do about it now. MacCready didn’t want to ask if Casey still had the Rad-Away; he was a little afraid of the answer.

 

They walked a little while longer as the storm drew nearer. Casey’s Pip-Boy started to go nuts every time the lightning flashed, and then gradually die away again. Every time it did, MacCready looked nervously at it, glowing bright green in the sickly yellow-green of the storm. He was starting to feel nauseous, but that might well have been his imagination. The rain had been spotting large fat drops in the dust, but now it was starting to get heavier. MacCready turned his collar up against it. At last Casey pointed to a little shack down by the river.

 

“There,” he said, not quite concealing the relief in his voice. There were a couple of bloatflies buzzing aimlessly around the shack, unbothered by the storm. Casey drew out his pistol and went to one knee, aiming carefully and putting two quick silenced shots in each fat, hairy body. Greenish-brown gunk and guts flew out of the first one as it exploded - MacCready had to turn away. He was starting to think that his nausea might be real, and not a product of his paranoia after all. Casey stood up and went to the body of the second bloatfly as he holstered his pistol. MacCready pushed open the shack door, pistol out, checking inside; he really didn’t want to watch Casey pull all the inedible parts off the carcass. Happy that the shack was clear, he went inside and sat down, not bothering to take off his pack. A few moments later Casey joined him, stowing the bloatfly meat in his bag.

 

There were candles stuck to the shelf from the last poor asshole that had taken shelter here, so Casey set about lighting them. Once he’d finished he turned back to MacCready with a quizzical look.

 

“You okay, buddy?”

 

“Yeah,” MacCready lied. If he didn’t say anything then maybe it wasn’t really happening. He swallowed, and wished he hadn’t.

 

“Oh shit, you’re sick. Bobby, I’m sorry, this is all my fault,” said Casey, seeing MacCready’s lie almost immediately for what it was, and knelt down next to him. “I’m such an asshole.”

 

“It’s fine, just talk to me,” said MacCready, closing his eyes. “Distract me.”

 

“Uhh…” said Casey. He was quiet for a moment. MacCready’s stomach roiled. “Do you want me to get the Rad-Away?”

 

MacCready shook his head. “Not yet.” There were only two doses - if he remembered right - and Casey might need one too. Stupid to waste them if the storm would only re-irradiate them right away. Better to wait for it to pass first.

 

“Okay. Um. I can’t think of anything else so I guess… I’m sorry for trying to kiss you.”

 

MacCready’s eyes flew open. “What?” His heart had been beating a little faster than usual anyway, but at Casey’s words it lurched and started racing. Of all the things he’d expected Casey to say, none of them had been _that_. So he did remember.

 

Casey gave a half-hearted grin. “Well, at least I distracted you,” he said sheepishly. MacCready scowled at him, and allowed his eyes to drift closed again. The storm raged outside, and the candle flames leapt and shivered with the wind. The light flickering on his closed eyelids did not help the nausea. He took a deep breath in through his nose, held it, and let it out slowly. It didn’t help.

 

“I was gonna pretend that I didn’t remember doing it,” Casey went on. “But it didn’t seem right. I was waiting for an opportunity to bring it up, so I guess now is as good a time as any. Listen, I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. It clearly made you uncomfortable, so I promise I won’t do it again.”

 

It was getting worse and MacCready didn’t know if it was the storm, or the subject matter, or both. He had so many questions, and no-one he could ask, and his thoughts were spiralling out of control. Was it okay, feeling this way? Had anyone else ever felt like this, the way he felt for Casey? Was his disappointed that Casey wouldn’t try to kiss him again? Why? What did it mean about who he was, did it change anything? And what about Lucy? Had he ever really loved her at all? Why was everything suddenly so fucking _confusing_? His brain felt like it was spinning around inside his skull, his heart was pounding and his stomach churning, and Casey’s apology had done nothing at all to help. All of a sudden he knew he couldn’t fight it any longer. He stood up, pack still on his shoulder, and pushed past Casey and out of the shack.

 

No sooner had he opened the door than he threw up. Casey was somewhere behind him, asking him something, but MacCready couldn’t make his brain do anything about it. He waved his hand, _no_ , and hoped Casey would get it. The storm was still raging; it must be right overhead now. Rain pelted his face and hat; it felt good, but it was only a tiny mercy.

 

Usually throwing up made him feel better afterwards, at least, but it did nothing to lower his radiation level. He staggered toward the river, knowing it was going to happen again and wanting to at least not have to look at it. When he reached the river he went clumsily to his hands and knees, and threw up again into the churning water. His head was spinning, and he was starting to wonder if he should have let Casey do whatever it was he’d wanted to do as MacCready had left the shack. The temperature had dropped and he could feel the wind drying his sweat, but he was still burning up. He lifted a weak hand and swiped at the lapel of his duster, wanting to take it off, but that ability was currently completely beyond him. He was too tired even to be frustrated.

 

Suddenly the world tilted sideways and went grey.

 

~*~

 

He fought his way back to consciousness the way a drowning man fights his way to the surface. Everything was blurry and his head was pounding in time with his heartbeat. He closed his eyes against the light, and a warm weight settled next to him.

 

“Hey,” said Casey’s voice gently. “You okay?”

 

MacCready tried to lift his head but his brain just didn’t want to come with it - everything tilted crazily around him. He fought to hold on to consciousness but just as he lost the fight he felt a warm hand on the back of his head, easing him back down onto the pillow.

 

~*~

 

He awoke more slowly this time. He couldn’t see Casey, but he could hear him moving quietly around the shack. His head still ached. He lifted it up and another wave of pain almost knocked him out again but he fought it off with a groan.

 

“Hey, don’t try to move,” said Casey, appearing next to him. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” MacCready wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince.

 

“What happened?” MacCready asked, and discovered that even speaking hurt. He pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, closed his eyes against the light.

 

“You must have been closer to rad-sickness than either of us realised,” said Casey. “I tried to get you to take some Rad-Away but you wouldn’t listen, so I went to get it out of my pack anyway and then I heard a splash.”

 

“I fell in?” MacCready asked, opening his eyes again in surprise.

 

Casey looked sympathetically at him. “Little bit, yeah.”

 

“You saved me,” said MacCready, and immediately wished he hadn’t. He already felt like a breathless damsel in distress, and sounding like one as well was just insult to injury. 

 

“Well I wasn’t about to let you drown,” said Casey, with an amused little quirk of his lips. “Even if I had to fish you out of your own… You know what, never mind. The river washed most of it away.”

 

“Oh God.” MacCready squeezed his eyes shut against that particular mental image. It did not help.

 

“Along with most of what you were carrying, I should probably tell you,” added Casey. “I tried to make a grab for it but I couldn’t get you and your rifle, and your pack as well. I did get the gun though.”

 

“Oh no,” said MacCready. His eyes were already closed so he covered his face with his hands as well. “Casey, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Why are _you_ sorry? You were sick, you couldn’t help it,” Casey pointed out. He didn’t sound mad, but MacCready had been chewed out for less in the past. Once, Winlock had backhanded him for standing in the wrong place. “Besides, it was my fault you were sick in the first place.”

 

“If you wanna fire me I understand,” MacCready said, lowering his hands.

 

Casey rolled his eyes. “Will you stop?” He asked. “I told you, it’s fine. It wasn’t your fault. We’re both still alive, and we can get more stuff, okay?”

 

He’d said ‘we’. ‘We’re both still alive’. Not, ‘You’re still alive’.

 

“What do you mean, ‘we’? How close did you come to drowning with me?” MacCready heard himself ask. Casey grinned, but he didn’t quite meet MacCready’s eye.

 

“… You know, for a little guy you’re pretty heavy when you’re wet.”

 

“Casey…”

 

“Don’t worry about it. Really. We’re both still here, that’s all you need to know.”

 

MacCready threw him an agonised look, but he’d turned away to fish for something in his pack.

 

If MacCready had been in Casey’s place, he couldn’t honestly say he wouldn’t be mad. It felt like all he ever did was take from Casey; the guy had helped him get the Gunners off his back, and they’d been on the way to save MacCready’s son when Casey saved him again, from drowning _and_ radiation poisoning. MacCready didn’t think he’d met anyone so selfless since Lucy, honestly. Or anyone who’d seemed to care about him as much as Casey did. The thought humbled him, but he couldn’t put the words together to express it. It would have sounded dumb no matter what he said. He watched Casey’s back for a while as the other took out a gun and began to strip and clean it.

 

After a few moments MacCready pushed off the blanket and went to stand up, intending to go outside to pee, but as he straightened two things hit him at once. First that standing was still a little ambitious, and second that these were not his clothes.

 

Warm arms were around his waist suddenly, as the world went fuzzy again.

 

“Whoops. Okay… Down we go, nice and slow buddy. I got you.” Casey eased them both back down onto the grubby sleeping bag that had served as a mattress, keeping a steadying hand on MacCready’s arm until he was sure he wouldn’t pass out again. “Got a little ahead of yourself there.”

 

“Where are my clothes?” MacCready asked, as the world swam slowly back into focus. If he’d been thinking straight he could have figured it out for himself and avoided the entire awkward exchange that followed.

 

“Uh,” said Casey uncertainly. “Well… They were wet. I’m sorry, MacCready, I had to.”

 

“Oh.” _He’s seen me naked_.

 

“They must be almost dry by now if you want me to go get them. I started a fire outside and put them over it. They might smell like smoke a little, but I figured you’d prefer that to wet clothes,” Casey prattled, filling the silence.

 

“It’s fine,” said MacCready automatically.

 

“Mine were wet too, if it helps,” said Casey. MacCready wasn’t sure why he thought it might help.

 

His own nudity had never bothered MacCready before, it was just part of life in the Wastes. You bathed when you could, and if other people had got there before you, well then they just had to move over and deal with it. The only other time he’d felt shy about being naked in front of another person was the first time he and Lucy had found a quiet spot with some relatively clean water to wash in, after she’d found him in Big Town. He’d tried to expose himself as little as possible, washing one part at a time and covering it again quickly until she’d laughed at him.

 

He shook himself. So Casey had seen his dick. So what? They were both grown-ass adults, there was no need to be embarrassed about it. It had been all but inevitable anyway, if they were travelling together. In fact, now that he thought about it, it was kind of surprising that they hadn’t seen each other naked already. Casey wasn’t used to the Wastes, maybe they used to do things differently back before the war. Maybe it was just Casey’s embarrassment rubbing off on MacCready. Odd that someone who flirted so wickedly sometimes would be embarrassed by that, but people were strange.

 

“Look, let’s eat, okay?” said Casey, turning away and standing up. “You haven’t eaten in like a day, so you must be starving.”

 

MacCready shook his head. No wonder Casey had seemed relieved when he woke up. Had it really been a day? Well, it could have been a year and he wouldn’t know the difference, he reflected. At least it hadn’t been two hundred.

 

“Okay.” He still had to pee, so he stood up - more slowly this time, holding on to the shelf - and shambled out of the shack in his borrowed clothes, trying not to think too hard about the grubby raider that must have worn them before him.

 

When he returned, Casey handed him a bowl of what looked like stew. They sat down to eat; the conversation was a little stilted at first, but then Casey produced a couple of beers. Seeing MacCready’s sudden concerned look, he grinned.

 

“Don’t worry, this is all I have,” he said. “No hangover, I promise.”

 

By the end of the meal they were laughing over a comic book they both happened to have read; Casey, before the bombs had dropped.

 

“And when Grognak found the Golden Fleece?”

 

“Yeah, and then there was that fight with that guy… What was his name…”

 

“Gadnat the Destroyer,” said MacCready, laughing. “With his…”

 

“His Club of Truth! Fuck, I forgot about that,” said Casey, setting his empty beer bottle down next to him. “That shit didn’t even _need_ magic. Fuck, if someone came running at me holding that and screaming I’d tell ‘em everything I knew.”

 

“I’d tell ‘em what I ate for breakfast and my kid’s shoe size,” said MacCready through his laughter; his sides were beginning to hurt. As he looked at Casey, he saw his face fall a little.

 

“I was gonna read all of those with Shaun once he got big enough,” he said. He was still smiling, but it had turned sad.

 

“Hey. Come on. You still can,” said MacCready, cursing himself for his choice of words.

 

“Yeah.” Casey didn’t sound convinced. “Long way to go before that, though. MedTek, first. Speaking of which, you should probably sleep.”

 

The shack was nowhere near as secure as the rooftop had been, but they had little choice, as MacCready was still too weak to move. This time Casey sat watch while MacCready slept - or tried to. Having spent most of the last day or so unconscious, sleep just wouldn’t come.

 

Things might not be as awkward with Casey as they had been, but that didn’t mean everything was back to normal. The almost-kisses and the involuntary nudity still floated around in MacCready’s brain like feral corpses bloating in a flooded sewer. Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it still gave his insomnia an excuse to outstay its welcome. Finally he gave up, wrapped the blanket tightly around himself and got up.

 

Casey was smoking when MacCready found him; he’d clambered up onto the roof of the shack, and was sitting facing the glow of a burning truck or something, off in the distance out Cambridge way. He smiled when he saw MacCready.

 

“I thought I couldn’t hear any snoring,” he said. His voice was low, but still loud in the dead quiet.

 

“Shut up, I don’t snore,” MacCready protested, but even he knew that wasn’t true. Once he had believed it, but years of sleeping next to Lucy and her sharp elbows had taught him otherwise.

 

“The hell you don’t. You coming up?” Casey held out a hand to help MacCready up onto the shack next to him. MacCready scrambled up, managing to keep the blanket around his shoulders, and settled next to Casey.

 

“Got any spares?” He asked, nodding at the cigarette. Casey wordlessly took it from between his lips and offered it up. MacCready grinned his thanks and accepted it, smoking quietly while Casey lit another.

 

“Look at your hair,” said Casey after a while, reaching up to card his fingers through MacCready’s sleep-rumpled mop.

 

“Needs cutting, I know,” said MacCready, trying not to lean too obviously into his touch. “And a wash.”

 

“Hey, don’t we all. How are you feeling?”

 

“Better. Standing up is still weird, but I’m okay. Hey, uh, I never actually thanked you for saving my life, so… Thank you.”

 

Casey turned a warm smile on him, lit by the glow of the cigarettes and the burning truck in the distance. “Anytime.”

 

“And thanks for, you know. Looking after me.” MacCready ploughed on, before he lost his nerve. He could feel himself blushing in the darkness; he seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. He pulled the blanket up a little higher, pretending to feel cold.

 

“Hey, no problem. Before Shaun was born, Gwen sometimes used to get really sick. She had glandular fever, it used to flare up from time to time. I used to take time off work to look after her. I mean, Codsworth could have done it, but I liked to be there with her.”

 

“Must have been hard, seeing her sick like that.”

 

Casey nodded. “Yeah. Would have been worse, sitting at work worrying about her. Besides, don’t tell anyone, but I kinda like looking after people. Makes me feel useful.”

 

MacCready huffed a laugh. “Well, you make a great nurse,” he said. “Gwen was lucky to have you.”

 

Casey looked down at his hands, smiling sadly in the darkness. “No, I was the lucky one,” he said softly.

 

They were quiet for a moment; MacCready mostly because he couldn’t think of anything to say. Or more precisely, he couldn’t figure out how to say what he wanted to.

 

“I don’t want to say that I know how you feel, because I don’t. But when I lost Lucy… Man, she was my shoulder to cry on. I really thought I’d never find anyone like her ever again. And you know what? I won’t. But I think that’s okay.”

 

Casey looked over at him, his brown eyes sad and sincere. “Bobby… I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

 

“Thanks. I still miss her and I probably always will, but I know that she would be happy that I’m doing everything I can to make sure Duncan is safe. And if that’s all I can give her, then I’ll do my best to fight for it.” He had started out wanting to offer Casey some companionship, show him that it was possible to find a way to survive what he was going through, but now he wasn’t sure he was still making the same point. He felt Casey’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently.

 

“Maybe we should start some kind of sad dads club,” said Casey, and they both laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh, but it seemed to bring them both together in a way MacCready’s clumsy words hadn’t quite managed.

 

They were quiet for a long time after that, watching the glow of the burning truck in the distance. Someone’s gun pop-popped and another ratta-tatted in retaliation, but it was far enough away that they wouldn’t have to worry about it. MacCready finished his cigarette and pitched the butt out toward the river he’d almost drowned in the day before. The temperature had dropped so slowly that he hardly noticed until he was shivering; he drew his knees up to his chest and hugged the blanket around himself. He had been growing sleepy, but woke up when Casey put an arm around his waist and pulled him close, rubbing his arm to warm him up. MacCready’s head was at an odd angle now and keeping it upright was hurting his neck, so he let it drop onto Casey’s shoulder, too tired to care if he thought anything of it. If he did, he said nothing. MacCready watched the stars turn slowly in the inky black sky, until his eyelids grew heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments on the first chapter! I'm sorry they didn't make it to MedTek yet. Soon, I promise. :)


	3. No Matter Where You Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm right behind you baby, you'll never get away from me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments so far!

After his near-death experience, the intensity of his feelings for Casey didn’t seem quite so unsettling. A little perspective never hurt, not when you were alive to appreciate it. It was just a crush, right? He’d had crushes before, so what. Maybe not on _guys_ , but still. Casey was pretty amazing, even before he’d got rid of Winlock and Barnes, saved MacCready’s life, and offered, unprompted, to help him save Duncan’s. He had a smart mouth, he had no hesitation resorting to violence when it was necessary, he liked to make caps and he didn’t judge MacCready for stealing things - quite the opposite, if his own sticky fingers were anything to go by. Okay, he seemed to have developed a small alcohol problem, but with what had happened to him so far MacCready wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d just gone right for the chems. Alcoholism was tame compared with, say, a Psycho habit. Casey was like a fucked-up comic book character come to life, so it was hardly surprising that MacCready all but idolised him. Combine all of that with the way Casey flirted with him, and MacCready would defy anyone to _not_ have a crush on the guy. It didn’t have to mean anything, or change the way MacCready fundamentally thought of himself.

 

“Quiet today, Bobby? You still not feeling right?” Casey broke into his thoughts as they walked in the direction of MedTek.

 

“No, I’m fine, just a little spacey,” said MacCready.

 

“Good, because we’re getting pretty close now,” Casey went on. “I need you at full capacity if there’s gonna be ferals.”

 

Sinclair had told him about the ferals when they’d spoken, but Casey didn’t know MacCready had already been there by himself. He hadn’t felt the need to tell him about his epic failure; the ferals would still be there. But he decided that Casey ought to be forewarned, not just about the ferals but also about MacCready’s feelings about them. “Yeah, uh, about that…”

 

Casey turned to him, expression full of dark dismay. “Oh God, Bobby, what? Don’t tell me there’s a fucking Deathclaw in there too. It’s way too late to go back for the missile launcher now.”

 

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just… Well, ferals is how Lucy… how she died. I just thought you should know. I mean I won’t freak out or anything, it’s just that I really, _really_ hate them. Like, a whole lot.”

 

Casey looked him over, appraisingly. “Hmm. Yeah, I thought there might be something like that going on,” he said thoughtfully. “I kinda noticed you seem to have more trouble not cursing when it’s ferals.”

 

He was being generous. MacCready had had to mentally apologise to Duncan more than once for slipping up when faced with a subway tunnel crawling with them, and he knew for a fact Casey had heard him curse several times in places like that. Especially when they got too close; he always expected ferals to feel slimy, but unless they’d been lying in a pool of water their skin felt uncomfortably dry and scratchy. He shuddered.

 

In truth his hatred of ferals was tinged with more than a little bit of fear. It was dumb, he knew, because he’d never been afraid of them before Lucy died. He wasn’t afraid of one or two, just shambling along a street, but he’d seen firsthand just how quickly they could swarm and overwhelm a person in a confined space. And what they would then do to that person. No-one deserved to go out like that, and the thought of it happening to him just like it happened to Lucy haunted his dreams. He supposed it was cowardly, but there it was.

 

That and… Duncan might have been well again by now, if MacCready had been stronger and less afraid.

 

“Yeah,” was all he said.

 

“Okay, well, just try and keep it together, okay? We’re doing this for Duncan, just think of him.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Finally one of the buildings that loomed up in the mist ahead revealed itself to be the MedTek facility; MacCready sighed with mixed relief and renewed tension. “There it is,” he breathed. “Okay. I just hope Sinclair’s codes work.” He hadn’t got far enough to test them last time.

 

“We’ll find a way, even if they don’t work. Chin up, buddy, we got this.”

 

“What, you’re an expert because you found a magazine about hacking?”

 

Casey frowned, mock-offended. “Hey, I’ll have you know I used to moderate a shooting forum.”

 

“What’s a shooting forum?” MacCready asked, confused. What did guns have to do with anything?

 

Casey grinned. “Never mind. Just an old-world computer thing. Come on.”

 

In fact, MacCready had every faith in Casey’s hacking abilities - it was just another of those seemingly endless skills of his. (And another justification for MacCready’s crush, since that was apparently what he was calling it now.) It was just that it would be a lot faster if Sinclair’s codes were worth a shit, that was all.

 

The door slid open; shafts of weak sunlight illuminated two hundred years’ worth of dust. MacCready was on high alert, straining his ears for any sound of groaning, but there was nothing yet. The last time he’d been here, he had at least managed to take out the ferals in the lobby and the first few corridors. It would get significantly more difficult after that, though. Casey’s attention was laser-like, eyes darting here and there at all the doors in the room. MacCready knew he’d been a soldier once, so this must have been his training kicking in. In spite of his growing anxiety, MacCready’s heart gave a little skip. He told it to shut up, and drew out his rifle.

 

They tried the elevator - jammed, as MacCready had been hoping perhaps it might not be this time. “Shit,” Casey said, jabbing uselessly at the button. It beeped at him but would do nothing else. Then they found the airlock; this was as far as MacCready had managed to get last time, before the ferals had driven him out. Casey checked that the room was clear, before lowering his gun and wandering over to a metal box. He forced open the lid - two centuries of rust had sealed it all but shut - and made a pleased noise at the adjustable wrench he found inside. 

 

“Dude, seriously?” MacCready hissed, furious that Casey had apparently confused this life-or-death mission with what he called a ‘junk run’. He always did this, and it infuriated MacCready - Mister Professional Soldier would clear a room and then disappear, and Mister Oooh Shiny would take over and pick excitedly through the garbage.

 

“Yeah, seriously,” Casey hissed back. “You wanna know how I don’t spend all my caps on Stimpaks? This is how.” He jabbed at the box for emphasis.

 

“Maybe you could try actually using the cover I find instead of standing out in the open getting shot at,” MacCready groused. “Then maybe you wouldn’t need as many.”

 

“Oh, shut up. You love my heroics.”

 

This was one of those times when not cursing was really, really hard, and it only made it worse that Casey knew that. He grinned at MacCready’s scowl. In a way it felt kind of good to let some of his tension out as anger, but MacCready would be damned if he let Casey know that.

 

They moved on through the building, near-silent and at a snail’s pace, with frequent stops to pick up ‘useful’ junk. And, admittedly, more than a few Stimpaks. Casey graciously did not give MacCready even one ‘I-told-you-so’ look, but MacCready could still hear him thinking it.

 

_Asshole_ , he thought fondly.

 

As they rounded a corner they heard the telltale gurgling growl of a feral being roused - from sleep? Death? - and MacCready’s breath caught in his throat. His skin tried to crawl off his body again, and he ducked down into the shadows, trigger finger tightening. Mister Professional Soldier showed up again, fortunately, and Casey charged off, ten mil blazing. He’d taken out six of the fuckers before MacCready could even see what was going on, and he immediately felt sheepish and guilty when Casey came back to see what he was doing.

 

“You okay man?”

 

MacCready stood up, not quite able to meet his gaze. “Yeah. Sorry.”

 

“Don’t let ‘em psyche you out,” was all Casey said before he clapped MacCready on the shoulder and turned on his heel again. He made his way up a collapsed section of ceiling that had formed a kind of ramp up to the next floor and MacCready followed, with a shaky attempt at a calming breath. Losing his shit would not help Duncan. He kicked a feral as he went past, but couldn’t quite bring himself to loot it.

 

The next group of ferals went a little better - MacCready took aim over Casey’s head as he ducked and shot one in the face. It hit the wall behind it with a satisfying thud as Casey took another one out at the knees. He’d swapped out his ten mil for a baseball bat, and MacCready could hear bones crunching as he swung it. A third ran right at MacCready out of a doorway on his left, but by now he was hopped up on adrenaline and ready for it. He swung the butt of his rifle and smashed it in the jaw - it gave a choked groan as it staggered back.

 

“Eeeeuuhhhh, _shut up_!” MacCready heard himself yell as he took aim. The thing’s head exploded in a spray of dark red, and he was already looking for the next one before the body had hit the ground.

 

They took out a couple more - one ran screaming at Casey only to meet MacCready’s bullet with its face, that one was pretty cool - and once he was sure that was the last of them for now, Casey shook the worst of the gore off his bat and began pushing the bodies around with his boot, looking for valuables. MacCready took the opportunity for a cigarette, and lit it with shaking fingers.

 

“You doing okay?” Casey asked, not looking up.

 

“I’m fine, you don’t need to keep checking up on me,” said MacCready, a little more harshly than he meant it. Damn adrenaline.

 

“Okay,” said Casey mildly, as if he were only half listening, which he probably was. He continued rooting around in the mess on the floor. It turned MacCready’s stomach a little, so he looked away. Finally Casey stood up.

 

“Ready?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

A few more groups of ferals and a few floors later they made it to some kind of office with a working terminal - the first they’d seen since the one outside the airlock. “Okay,” said MacCready, pulling a small piece of paper out of his pocket. “This must be it. Here’s the code.”

 

Casey took it, looked it over, and went to the terminal. MacCready held his breath. A few taps on the keyboard and Casey frowned. MacCready’s heart lurched horribly but then - all around him machinery started whirring and jumping to life. _It worked!_ Casey stood up and reloaded his gun, already heading for the corridor. MacCready followed, knowing that the sound would have woken any remaining ferals on the floor.

 

He was right, but Casey took most of them out before they even knew he was there, and MacCready cleared up the stragglers as they shambled through the doors. Rather than go all the way back down using the stairs, Casey simply jumped down through the nearest holes in the floor. MacCready shook his head, but shrugged and followed. They quickly found their way back to the airlock terminal, which would now open the doors for them, and through the airlock itself. More ferals on the other side - not that this was surprising. They fought their way through to a room lined with what looked like cells. It seemed quiet until they walked past the first cell and nearly had the life frightened out of them when a feral banged suddenly on the glass right beside Casey’s head.

 

“Good thing we’re both wearing brown pants,” said Casey, once he’d finished laughing.

 

All the doors were sealed via terminal - fine by MacCready - but it seemed that the same terminal that controlled them, also controlled the next door they would need to go through to get any further. Worse, it seemed there was no way to control the different sets of doors separately.

 

“Fuck,” said Casey, echoing MacCready’s thoughts yet again. “What kind of asshole designs a system this way? Oh. Oh, wait…” he added as he tapped away at the terminal. His frown melted into a wicked grin. He looked up over the top of the terminal through the glass into the room with the cells and nodded at it - MacCready followed his gaze. At the other end stood a Protectron pod. They exchanged grins.

 

Casey tapped at the keys until the pod released its occupant, and they both ducked down as the cell doors opened. MacCready couldn’t help himself - he stood up just far enough to peer through the glass and watch the mayhem.

 

The ferals tried to swarm the Protectron - for a horrible moment he was seeing Lucy all over again - but the thing just refused to go down, firing lasers and flailing at the rotting things with its metal arms. It was kind of awesome, just watching them battering futilely at the metal monster, only to be steadily beaten back and gradually defeated with unflappable mechanical precision.

 

“Area… Clear…” The Protectron intoned at last, to no-one at all for all it knew. Bodies littered the floor around it; it stepped on one’s head and crushed it like an overripe gourd without even seeming to notice it was there. Casey held up his hand for a high five.

 

MacCready was giggling like a little girl at this point, but he didn’t care. The stench of ozone and half cooked rotten meat drifted through from the next room, along with the sound of slow, clanging footsteps. To MacCready, it was the scent of victory.

 

They moved down another floor and found a room with two more locked cells containing more ferals, and an elevator.

 

“This should take us down to the sub-level,” said MacCready, heading straight for the elevator. “I don’t think we need to let those things out this time though,” he added, nodding at the ferals. “Let’s just leave ‘em to rot.”

 

To his surprise, Casey was walking slowly toward the cell window, holstering his gun. The feral inside battered itself uselessly against the glass when it saw him.

 

“I wonder who they were,” said Casey quietly. “They must have been so scared, locked down here to die like this.”

 

MacCready’s mouth fell open. All this time, running from ferals, fighting them off in his dreams as often as in his waking life… It had never once occurred to him that they used to be _people_.

 

Ghouls were one thing; Hancock, Daisy, any number of others he’d known were some of the best people he’d ever met. But somehow, even though he knew that ghouls and ferals were pretty damn closely related, it had never occurred to him that these barely sentient monsters had once had lives, _families_ not dissimilar to his own. They weren’t like supermutants; they had not evolved along with the world, by generations. Most of them had been here when the bombs fell, just like Casey, even if they hadn’t quite made it through with as little physical damage.

 

And, as an afterthought to this, suddenly it occurred to him that it was not outside the realm of possibility that Casey might have personally _known_ these people, the ones now brainlessly throwing themselves against the glass at the first thing they’d seen moving in two centuries. They had been alive at the same time as him, after all.

 

Casey turned back to him. “We should let them out,” he said, breaking the shocked silence. “Give them peace.”

 

MacCready shut his mouth and nodded. He wasn’t sure what was different about these ferals in particular. Perhaps it was that there was just the two of them, all alone with not even a Protectron, for two hundred years. Whatever it was, it seemed to have affected Casey deeply. MacCready lifted his gun and jerked his chin at the terminal that would open the doors. Casey went over to them, unlocked the doors, and held up his own gun. The ferals rushed out to meet the bullets.

 

The silence that followed once the gunshots had died away was deafening.

 

“Come on,” said Casey quietly, after a moment. They holstered their guns and made for the elevator.

 

At the bottom, it opened right out in front of the laboratory where Sinclair had said the cure should be. The room stood alone, windowed all around into the corridor that ran a full circle around it. MacCready jerked his chin at it. “In there,” he whispered. They each took a path around the lab - didn’t want to be surprised once they got in there with any missed ferals coming in behind them - and met at the door on the opposite side. Another terminal unlocked the last door between MacCready and his son’s cure.

 

They held up their guns and went in - MacCready accidentally kicked a stray box of glass beakers with his boot and all hell broke loose. They had - of course - looked in to see how many were in there before they entered, but most of them must have been under the tables or otherwise out of view, and the two of them were quickly surrounded by flailing, screaming death.

 

Panic rose in MacCready’s throat - _Lucy!_ \- and he kicked and battered away with the butt of his rifle, unable to get far enough away from them to shoot. They swung wildly back breaking their own limbs in the process, smashing MacCready’s head and face and shoulders - he could feel warm blood dripping from his nose - and he’d lost sight of Casey.

 

_“_ No _… no, not again!”_

 

He heard himself screaming the other man’s name, pitch rising with his panic, the stench of rotting corpse breath filling his mouth and throat with every shallow gasp. He tried to retch but couldn’t, and something hard smashed into the side of his head making him see stars. He couldn’t hear Casey’s gun, couldn’t hear anything but choked, gurgling screams - his own or theirs? - and the blood rushing in his ears. A clawed hand raked his face - he shoved an elbow into whatever was attacking him from the side, and its head thumped into his shoulder. _Did ferals bite?_

 

They were drowning him. He screamed again for Casey - _Lucy?_ \- and another feral dove right at his face, pushing several others out of the way as it went. It screeched right in his ear as it fell into him, and for some reason, that was the switch that flipped his terror into rage.

 

“ _Fuck you!_ ” he screamed, swinging the butt of his rifle in front of him at head height. “You touch him and I will blow your fucking heads off, you shit-stained, brain dead _fucks_!” If asked, he would not later be able to remember what he’d said. He managed to fight enough distance between himself and the ferals that he could back out of the door as they staggered around, firing as he went. After what felt like an eternity, they finally started to drop and lay where they fell. He continued firing with a savage glee, screaming aloud at each victory. He caught sight of Casey again after a moment, blood running down the side of his face, wounded but alive and _pissed_ , yelling wordlessly as he attacked the ferals right back with his bat. Relief flooded through MacCready’s whole body, and a grin quirked his lips as he took aim at the ones furthest from his friend. Didn’t want to hit him by accident, or, you know, rob him of his revenge. Finally the last one dropped, and Casey pulled out his ten mil and fired a shot into its chest with a last furious yell.

 

The whole thing couldn’t have taken longer than a minute between when the door opened and when at last they stood, bloodied but victorious, panting heavily; it had seemed like hours. MacCready’s rifle clattered to the floor and he rested his hands on his knees, swaying where he stood. It wasn’t enough - the adrenaline was too much. He staggered toward into a table and gripped the edges, trying to force himself to calm down before he passed out. Casey gave a breathless, slightly hysterical laugh.

 

“You okay?”

 

MacCready lifted a hand, not trusting himself to speak yet. _Yeah, I’m okay._ Blood dripped from his nose and spattered big fat, red drops on the tabletop; MacCready closed his eyes against the sight of it, and the world tilted dizzily around him. After a moment, gentle hands took him by the shoulders. Casey guided him slowly between the corpses to a stool and sat him down, pressing a grubby oven mitt to his nose.

 

“Here,” he said, and stuck a Stimpak into MacCready’s thigh.

 

“Ow,” said MacCready, without much energy. “Thanks.” The bleeding stopped quite quickly after that, but he was probably going to be sporting a couple of black eyes for a while. His nose didn’t feel broken now, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been a moment ago.

 

They sat and rested for a moment, neither saying much. _This will make some great nightmare fuel_ , MacCready reflected idly. _If I ever sleep again_. After a while Casey stood up and started moving around somewhere behind him, mumbling to himself as he turned up various pieces of medical junk. He had a particular love of microscopes, MacCready remembered, and labs like this were a gold mine for the things. How he could so calmly go back to his foraging habits after _that_ was beyond MacCready, but he was too exhausted to care.

 

He dabbed at his nose, which had stopped bleeding entirely now, and chucked the gory oven mitt away in distaste. His head throbbed. He must look awful, he knew, but it would all be worth it for -

 

“The cure!” He exclaimed, remembering it suddenly. How could he have forgotten?

 

“I got it,” said Casey, holding it up with a wink. MacCready twisted on his stool and stared.

 

“‘Prevent’? Is that what it says?”

 

“That’s the fella,” said Casey. Concussion be damned; MacCready was up off his stool and throwing his arms around Casey’s neck.

 

“Oh my God,” he said into Casey’s shoulder, feeling an arm wrap itself around him. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

 

“Hey, you fought for it as hard as I did,” said Casey. His words brushed MacCready’s ear as he spoke them.

 

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” said MacCready, pulling gently away. This much was true, and they both knew it. Even if MacCready had managed to get down this far into the building, he certainly never would have left it. He couldn’t help the mist forming in his eyes as Casey handed him the cure for Duncan’s disease. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

 

Casey smiled, and if MacCready wasn’t mistaken, his own eyes may have been a little misty, too. “Get that cure into your boy’s hands, that’s how you can repay me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have played a little fast and loose with the exact layout and contents of MedTek, but it's all in the interest of drama so I hope you'll forgive me. (It's not because I forgot most of the details and had to make them up, I swear.) 
> 
> I figured that MacCready's experiences with feral ghouls would be more than enough to give the poor guy a healthy wariness of them, if not an outright phobia. (I headcanon, personally, that it's also why he hates getting wet; because there are often things waiting for him under the surface.)


	4. Worrying Right Along

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I should go to school about love; worry, worry, worry, woe is me. Casey drinks too much moonshine, and MacCready puts his foot down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a little while, you'll be pleased to know I've been writing smut. It doesn't happen for a few chapters yet, but I did warn you it was a slow burn!

It may have been the concussion, but it was more likely the lightness of his heart that had MacCready practically skipping all the way to Goodneighbor. Daisy looked up as they approached, a smile breaking across her wasted face.

 

“MacCready,” she croaked, clearly delighted to see him. “Long time no see.”

 

“I got it, Daisy! I got the cure!”

 

Daisy put her hands on her hips. “Well that’s wonderful news. How in the world did you do it? Last time you tried, the ferals almost chewed you to bits.”

 

MacCready threw a shy glance at Casey, who was standing a few steps behind him. “I didn’t do it alone,” he said. “I had a lot of help from my friend, here.” It was hard to make out on her Ghoul face, but MacCready could swear she was looking from one to the other, adding things up in her head. There was a small but suspicious twist to what had once been her lips, but she said nothing about it.

 

“Well, however you did it, I’m glad you did,” she said instead. “As it happens, my caravan hasn’t left yet. I’ll get this on there before it does,” she added, taking the cure from MacCready. “The driver owes me several favours, and he’s trustworthy.”

 

“Thanks a million, Daisy, you’re a doll,” said MacCready, and kissed her cheek. She swatted a hand at him, clearly pleased.

 

“Oh you. It’s the least I can do kid,” she replied. “It’ll be at your homestead in no time, and I’ll have my guy check back with me when he comes out this way again. You boys be good,” she added with a wicked grin, and MacCready felt a blush creeping up his neck. Daisy’s laugh reminded MacCready of a crow; she disappeared to find her driver.

 

“Well, there you go,” said Casey. He seemed a little awkward. Perhaps now that the adrenaline had worn off and their mission was over, he was wondering what they should do next; MacCready sure was.

 

He smiled. “Thanks again,” he said. “Drinks are on me.” He regretted this almost as soon as he said it. He’d only meant to suggest a celebration, and in his excitement and exhaustion he’d forgotten Casey’s little alcohol issue. The last thing he wanted to end his day with was propping Casey up and dragging him up the stairs at the Rexford, then staying awake all night to make sure the guy didn’t choke on his own vomit.

 

“Sounds good,” said Casey, either not noticing or choosing to gloss over MacCready’s discomfort. “Let’s make some caps first though, we got some shit to sell finally.”

 

They haggled with KL-E-0 for a while - MacCready never knew whether to be surprised by how much of a hardass she was. She was a robot, but then again she was an Assaultron - and, satisfied with the amount at last, took their caps to the Third Rail. The booze was shitty, but hey, the verbal abuse was free.

 

Charlie did not disappoint. All Mister Handys had a scary amount of personality for robots, and Charlie’s disdain for all his customers was a particularly colourful example. He looked them up and down with all three of his eyes and said, “Oh. It’s you.”

 

“A bottle of your finest, good sir,” said Casey, ignoring this, grandly depositing a bag of caps on the bar. MacCready smirked in spite of himself.

 

“Finest what? Piss?” snorted the robot. “Fuck off.”

 

The day just wasn’t complete until you’d been told to fuck off by a robot, MacCready thought. Casey was undeterred.

 

“Okay. Have any Bobrov’s?”

 

“Yeah, dunno what you want with that swill though, unless it’s to light fires with,” said Charlie, but produced a bottle and a couple of smeary glasses. “Fifty caps.”

 

“Forty?” Casey suggested brightly.

 

“My arse. Fifty or you can clear off out of it and take your caps with you,” snapped Charlie. Casey sighed and pushed the bag of caps toward him.

 

“Fine.”

 

“He definitely overcharges you,” said MacCready quietly as they retreated to a table.

 

Casey grinned. “That’s because he hates me,” he said cheerfully as he unscrewed the bottle.

 

“He hates everyone. Kind of a dumb job to give an anti-social robot.”

 

“Yeah, but where else in Goodneighbor can you go to drink? Hancock’s not stupid,” said Casey, pouring two generous glasses. “No-one challenges Charlie because he’s an asshole, so he can get away with charging more for the swill he serves here.” He lifted up his glass.

 

“To victory,” he said.

 

“And to whoever created Prevent,” added MacCready.

 

“And to us.” They clinked and drank; no sooner had he set his glass down, than Casey was pouring another.

 

MacCready considered, and decided the hell with it. “Uh… Casey? Not that I’m trying to tell you what to do…”

 

“Come on,” said Casey with an exasperated sigh. “Don’t do this. We’re supposed to be celebrating! Duncan has a fighting chance to live! Just kick back, let it go,” he said, and swallowed his second glass in one.

 

MacCready pursed his lips, but said nothing more; after all, without Casey, he would never even have got Winlock and Barnes off his back, never mind saved his son. But sure enough, an hour later, Casey was staggering around the Third Rail, butting into conversations to clumsily chat people up. Several people were muttering darkly in his direction, and if MacCready was not mistaken, at least half were fingering weapons under the tables. Charlie’s huffing noises were growing steadily louder. Soon, Casey looked like he was about to stumble right up onto Magnolia’s little stage, and Charlie yelled out.

 

“Oi! MacCready! Put your boyfriend on a fuckin’ leash, will you? Or you can both fuck off out of here. Permanently. Last warning, got it?”

 

“Sorry Charlie,” MacCready called back, acutely aware that everyone was staring, and also that his face was redder than a tato. He leapt out of his seat and grabbed Casey by the shoulders before he could actually reach poor Magnolia, who looked equal parts pitying and faintly disgusted as she tried to continue her song throughout the disturbance.

 

“Sorry Magnolia,” said MacCready, and hustled a giggling Casey up the stairs and out into the street. He did not bother to grab the mostly empty bottle of Bobrov’s.

 

“Come on, I was just having a little fun,” Casey slurred. “Don’t you remember what fun is, Bobby?”

 

“You almost got us barred from the Third Rail, you asshole,” said MacCready, feeling justified in breaking his promise for the second time today. Casey gave a theatric gasp.

 

“Robert Joseph MacCready, you did a _swear_!” he cried, making the nearest Goodneighbor guard shuffle his feet and grumble darkly under his breath.

 

“Shut up,” MacCready growled, and shoved him in the direction of the Hotel Rexford. Claire wouldn’t be pleased to see them, but it was their only option.

 

“I’m telling Duncan,” giggled Casey.

 

“Oh, you think that’s funny?” Now MacCready was actually starting to lose his temper. “You wanna throw that in my face right now?”

 

“Come on, don’t be a meaner. I’m just playing,” said Casey.

 

MacCready sighed. “Whatever.”

 

He deposited Casey on the bed in their usual room; he bounced and giggled. MacCready sighed. He had been right about Claire. She had charged them fifteen caps instead of the usual ten, as a ‘cleaning fee’. MacCready hadn’t been able to meet her gaze as he handed the caps over, but he just knew she was pursing her lips at them.

 

Casey was still giggling; he hadn’t reached the crying stage yet, or the weird clingy stage. Suddenly MacCready didn’t want to be there when he did. He took off the pieces of Casey’s armour that he could reach, figuring the guy could do the rest himself or wake up uncomfortable. He didn’t care much either way any more. He set the armour on the floor and went to let himself out.

 

“Hey… Where you going?” Casey asked belatedly, as MacCready was almost out of the door.

 

“To get you some Addictol,” MacCready snapped. He didn’t wait for a reply, but slammed the door behind him and thundered down the stairs. Claire frowned at him as he passed through the lobby, but he ignored her.

 

The evening air was fresh - well, for Goodneighbor, anyway. MacCready would take it. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a slow wander around town. Daisy would be open for hours yet.

 

Chems would have been worse, he had to keep telling himself. At least Casey was only addicted to regular old alcohol, numbing mankind’s pain since the monkeys ate the rotten fruit. MacCready really didn’t blame him, in spite of how angry he felt about it. It was more… Disappointment. Yeah, that was it. Disappointment that his hero wasn’t really untouchable after all. And whose fault was that, really? Casey had never claimed to be anything other than human. Why was MacCready so surprised that he fell sometimes too, like everyone else?

 

He sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette. Hopefully Casey would be asleep by the time he returned. He wanted to talk to him about it, but not while the guy was still incapable of forming coherent sentences. He wanted to help, he really did. Casey had been through hell, and then been forced to relive it and if MacCready could do anything, anything at all, to help take away some of the pain he would do it without hesitation. But he’d tried asking about it, and had been met with a brick wall. Just, _nope_. Nothing. Casey had refused to even acknowledge the question. But talking had to be healthier than drinking, right? Wasn’t that what people said, that you had to talk about it to let it heal? But how could you make someone talk who wasn’t ready?

 

He sighed and slid down on the bench, legs spread wide to balance himself, resting his neck on the back and staring up at the stars. They had started, the other night, when Casey had told him about how Gwen got sick sometimes, back before Shaun was born. Perhaps, if MacCready hadn’t been so sick and exhausted himself, they might have got a bit further. He decided to suggest that they take a break from wandering the Commonwealth for a while. It didn’t have to be Sanctuary; it was hard to relax there with so much going on. You couldn’t walk past Sturges without him giving you some kind of job to do. As for Preston… MacCready was thoroughly sick of the Minutemen, _and_ their godawful violin music. Anyway, Sanctuary was probably too full of ghosts to be comfortable for Casey. Maybe they could go back to that rooftop they’d found, kick around up there for a few days. No way more raiders could have moved in yet. It was well hidden and easily defensible if you knew what you were doing, unlike the morons he and Casey had dispatched. Yeah; maybe he could take Casey there to dry him out and help him face his demons.

 

MacCready pitched his cigarette into the gutter and headed over to Daisy’s.

 

“Why the face? You should be on top of the world,” she asked as soon as she saw him. She wiped her hands on a rag and leaned forward on the bar with a smile.

 

“You got any Addictol?” He asked, by way of reply.

 

Daisy nodded knowingly. “For Vault Boy, right? Here,” she said, and tossed him an inhaler. “Don’t ask how I know. It’s a small town. Just, wait until he comes down before you give it to him, you don’t want to deal with that mess while he’s still high.”

 

“It work on alcohol?”

 

“Jeez kid,” said Daisy, shaking her head. “Yeah, but it ain’t pretty.”

 

“How long does it take to work?”

 

“Not long. A day or so. You sure you wanna put up with this shit?” she asked him. “You don’t owe him, just because he helped you.”

 

MacCready leaned forward on the counter, chin in hand. “It’s not like that,” he said. “He’s my friend.”

 

Daisy scoffed at this. “‘Friend’, yeah. And I’m your mother.”

 

MacCready frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“I saw the way you were looking at him. That was more than gratitude, and don’t try and bullshit me, kid, I been around people for two hundred years. I know love when I see it.”

 

MacCready jerked himself upright, spluttering. “I - I’m not… That isn’t…”

 

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Listen, kid, you can only lie to yourself for so long. Embrace it, trust me, it’s a lot better than the alternative. Take it from someone who did it the hard way.”

 

MacCready stared at her, thinking hard. After a while he heard himself speak. “Daisy… Am I… Am I _gay_?” The last word came out in a whisper.

 

The ghoul rolled her eyes and fixed him with a look. “You mean, did you ever really love Lucy? And if you did, how can you be in love with Vault Boy now? Yes, MacCready, you did love her. Of course you did. You loved her with all your heart. And you can be in love with him now, too.

 

“You’re bisexual, or something like it. It’s perfectly normal, not that you kids would know that these days. This is why libraries are so important. Damn supermutants,” she added under her breath.

 

MacCready’s mouth fell open in amazement for the second time that day, but he shut it again quickly and looked at his boots. This wasn’t what he’d come here for.

 

“Isn’t that kinda gay?” He asked, in spite of himself. Asking was embarrassing, but there wasn’t anyone else who seemed to know about this kind of stuff. Not that MacCready had found, anyway. The word repeated itself over and over on his mind: _bisexual. Bisexual_.

 

Daisy sighed. “Why would it matter if it was? Look, MacCready, I’ll humour you, because I know you don’t know any better, but it ain’t rocket science. ‘Bisexual’ isn’t _kinda_ anything, it’s a whole other thing, all by itself. What it means to you, personally, well… That’s just something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”

 

MacCready looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. She sure didn’t look like she was pulling some kind of elaborate prank. Finally he nodded.

 

“You said ‘take it from someone who’s done it the hard way’…?”

 

Daisy gave a lop-sided grin. “Yeah, I’m bisexual too. Welcome to the club. There’s no fee, but there sure as shit aren’t any buttons, either.”

 

~*~

 

She had waved off his attempts to pay for the Addictol: “It’s on the house, you got enough to deal with.” MacCready nodded his thanks and took the long way back to the Rexford, stopping for another cigarette break on the bench. The word floated through his mind again: _Bisexual_.

 

He’d heard the word, it had just never occurred to him to wonder if it applied to himself. Back in Little Lamplight, they’d thrown the word ‘gay’ around as an insult, even if none of them had really understood what it meant. He supposed that would have been pretty shitty for anyone who really would grow up to be gay, but it was a little late to change his behaviour now. As for bisexual… The few times he’d heard it spoken in Little Lamplight, it had been in reference to people who were… Odd. In some way unexplainable. As far as he’d known, it was merely a synonym for weird, strange. Somehow not quite like everyone else. He hadn’t found out until much later that it actually meant someone who could love men _and_ women. And anyone else in between, he supposed. Sixteen-year-old MacCready had shrugged and forgotten about it, preferring instead to put his energy into the pursuit of caps. _And Lucy_ , his mind added for him.

 

When he got back to the room, Casey had passed out on his back and was snoring loudly. MacCready shook his head. _And he gets on me for snoring_. At least he didn’t seem to have thrown up anywhere.

 

There was only one bed and Casey was taking up most of it, but MacCready was damned if he was going to sleep on the floor. Understanding why Casey was drinking so heavily didn’t mean MacCready couldn’t still be mad about his behaviour. He leaned over and planted both hands firmly on Casey’s hip, and shoved until there was room for him to lie down too. Casey grunted and swatted uselessly at him.

 

“Muuuhhhhh… Bobby, what the fuck…” he protested, still mostly asleep.

 

“There’s room for both of us and I’m not sleeping on the floor,” said MacCready firmly, sitting down in the space he’d made and taking off his boots. Casey made a noncommittal grunt, and soon began to snore again.

 

Once MacCready had taken off his hat and duster and laid down, however, it became apparent that there was less space than he’d thought. Even lying on his side, his back was still pressed up against Casey’s arm. Well, he’d made the decision now, and he was damned if he’d go back on it. He closed his eyes, but it was a while before sleep found him.

 

~*~

 

When he awoke, a heavy weight seemed to have pinned him to the mattress. He looked down to see Casey’s arm thrown across him, metal armour and all. Casey himself was still snoring. They were still pressed together, but rather than enjoying being smooshed into an embrace with the man he could now admit - at least to himself - that he might be a little bit attracted to, it made MacCready feel weird. He shoved Casey’s arm off him, with some difficulty, and got up.

 

The movement was enough to wake Casey, who blinked blearily at him. MacCready ignored him in favour of going to the window and lighting a cigarette.

 

“Hey,” said Casey by way of greeting, and rolled onto his back, rubbing his eyes.

 

“Hey yourself,” said MacCready, and pushed up the sash window.

 

“I feel like shit,” said Casey. MacCready just about stopped himself from retorting, ‘good’.

 

“You drink too much,” he said instead. “And you snore.”

 

“I’m sorry, Bobby,” said Casey quietly.

 

“How many times are we gonna do this?” MacCready asked, turning on him. “You drink yourself blind, act like an assho - a complete jerk, leave me to apologise to everyone and drag you to bed, and then have to clean up the mess the next day.”

 

“You don’t have to stick around, you know. There’s nothing stopping you leaving.” It wasn’t the words so much as the petulant tone that snapped MacCready’s temper.

 

“Fuck you! Fuck you if that’s what you think,” MacCready shouted, making Casey wince at the sudden loud noise. One of the guards looked up at the window from across the street below; MacCready stepped out of his view. He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. It still needed cutting, or at least a good wash.

 

“Look,” MacCready said, more calmly this time. “I got you some Addictol. I thought we could take a break from wandering around for a while, just bunker down somewhere quiet and rest. Maybe you can talk to me about Gwen instead of drinking to forget what happened to her. Because you won’t ever forget. Trust me on that one.”

 

“Why do you care?” Casey asked, propping himself up on one elbow. Apparently his shoulder was stiff, because he winced again. _Good_. “Why are you still hanging around with me, if I’m such a fuck-up?”

 

“You’re not a fu - you’re not a screw-up. You’ve been really good to me, and I don’t forget stuff like that. I wanna _help_ , Casey. I can’t undo what happened to Gwen, but maybe I can help you find a way through all this. I lost my wife too, if anyone has any idea what you’re going through, it’s me.”

 

They looked helplessly at each other for a moment. MacCready had no idea how Casey felt about all of this, but he sure felt better for getting it off his chest. So far he’d been too afraid of pissing Casey off to speak so bluntly, but now he wished he’d done it sooner. Finally Casey nodded.

 

“You’re right,” he said softly. “I know you’ve been trying to help. I know it’s stupid, but it kinda feels like if I don’t talk about it, then maybe it didn’t really happen.”

 

MacCready nodded. It was a feeling he knew well. “I know,” he said. “For the longest time after Lucy died, I kept telling Duncan that she’d just gone away. He was too little to understand. It sounds funny, but I had even myself half-convinced she’d come back someday.”

 

“Bobby, I’m sorry. About Lucy.”

 

MacCready flicked his cigarette out of the window and went over to the bed, shaking two more out of the pack. He lit both and offered one to Casey, who took it gratefully. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Lucy’s been gone almost four years now. I’m okay. Like I said before, I still miss her, but we’re not talking about me right now.”

 

“It’s like sometimes, the fight to find Shaun just isn’t enough,” said Casey. “I wanna find him, of course I do, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me, but even if I - I mean, even _when_ I find him, it still won’t bring Gwen back.”

 

“No, it won’t,” said MacCready. “But when we find him, at least you’ll know that Gwen can rest easier.”

 

Casey quirked a smile, but didn’t seem to be about to explain it. He took a drag on his cigarette.

 

“What?” MacCready asked.

 

“You said ‘we’,” said Casey. “You said, ‘when _we_ find Shaun’.”

 

MacCready grinned. “What, you think I was gonna let you go look for him on your own? After you helped me save my own kid? And saved my life as well?”

 

“You know I have to get into the Glowing Sea next, right?” Casey asked. “And the Institute, after that.”

 

“Yeah,” said MacCready. “And whatever you do to protect yourself from the rads, or the synths, I’m doing too.”

 

“There’s Deathclaws,” Casey warned him with a grin of his own.

 

“Ah, Deathclaws, Schmeathclaws.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's left comments and kudos so far! You've all been very kind, but if you have any constructive criticism please let me know that too!


	5. Practically Much Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, I’m a mighty, mighty man, I’m young and I’m in my prime, I’m gonna stay this way ‘cause oh, what a wonderful life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that ad hoc medical procedure I mentioned in the tags? Yeah. That. Also, I may have played it a little fast and loose on the old addictol effects, but hey, drama, right? I seem to be playing fast and loose with a lot of things, still, can't be any worse than Bethesda I guess

Convincing Casey to take a break hadn’t been as hard as MacCready had feared. In spite of blowing a lot of caps on moonshine last night, they still had enough to last them a little while. MacCready stocked up on food and water with Daisy before they left - especially water; Daisy had been quite insistent about that - while Casey went to KL-E-0 for ammo. 

 

“Hey kid,” said Daisy in a low voice as he counted out his caps. “You okay about everything?”

 

MacCready gave a quick nod. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks for everything you said, last night.”

 

“No problem,” she replied. “You take care of yourself first though, okay? Addicts aren’t the easiest people to deal with. Never mind the grieving ones.”

 

“I will. Thanks, Daisy.”

 

“Like I said. Oh and swing by the next time you’re in town, I should have word about your boy by then.”

 

“What in the world would I do without you,” he mused aloud. Daisy grinned and tapped her cheek; he leaned in and gave her a quick peck.

 

“You boys be good,” she called after him as he left to catch up with Casey. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

 

~*~

 

The rooftop was still deserted when they arrived, as MacCready had hoped, though there had clearly been some kind of skirmish on the ground in their absence. He managed to get up to the roof first, while Casey was distracted with looting the fresh raider corpses. He found the remaining bottles of whiskey that he’d hidden, and stashed them in his new pack. What he wanted to do was fling them as far away as he could, out over the rooftops, but you never wasted anything in the Wastes. The bottles would make great Molotovs. Casey didn’t need to know MacCready had kept them.

 

He joined MacCready on the roof after a few minutes, clearly pleased with the loot he’d found. “Those stupid fucks were wandering around with half a ton of Mini-Nukes,” he crowed.

 

“Yeah, well now you’re wandering around with half a ton of Mini-Nukes,” MacCready pointed out.

 

“Yeah, but I’m not a stupid fuck.”

 

“You sure?”

 

Casey grinned and pointed finger guns at him. “Ouch. Point to you. Anyway. I don’t have a Fat Man, but these babies will pay for a lot of other ammo.” He patted one with a disturbing amount of glee.

 

“We’re splitting all that though, right?” MacCready asked, going over to the fire pit and toeing the ashes with his boot.

 

Casey rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry your precious mercenary head,” he reassured him. “You can be a stupid fuck too if you like.”

 

“Point to you.”

 

They lit the fire again and put the food in the cooler; with nothing much else to sort out, there was little Casey could do to put off the Addictol any longer.

 

“How does this shit work, anyway?” He asked, turning the inhaler over in his hands.

 

“Honestly? I don’t know,” said MacCready. “Daisy just said it takes a day or so to work, and that it’s… uh…”

 

“What? Painful?” Casey was clearly trying to sound tough, but it wasn’t working. MacCready shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

 

“Well, the phrase Daisy used was ‘it ain’t pretty’.”

 

“Oh, great.”

 

“Can’t be worse than the way you wake up most mornings,” said MacCready. “Sorry, but it’s true.”

 

Casey grimaced. “I guess. Um, are you sure you want to be here for this? I don’t mind if you wanna miss out. You’ve seen me puke a lot lately, I don’t wanna put you through that again.”

 

MacCready shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m pretty much immune to that these days, what with drinking, rad-sickness, watching Lucy go through morning sickness, and then getting puked on a bunch by my own kid. After all of that, there really isn’t much that will turn your stomach.”

 

To his surprise, Casey smiled. “Gwen never got morning sickness,” he said. “She just… Glowed. The whole way through.”

 

“She was lucky,” said MacCready. “Lucy went through almost a whole month and all she could eat was dry crackers.”

 

“Wow. Well, if Lucy can make it through a whole month, then I can make it through a day,” said Casey. He held up the inhaler. “Your good health.”

 

~*~

 

“I cannot make it through an entire day,” he moaned, fourteen hours later. “Bobby, I’m dying.” Sunrise was maybe an hour away yet, and they’d been awake all night while Casey’s body violently rejected everything he’d put in it the previous day.

 

“You’re not dying, you baby,” said MacCready, doing his best to conceal his worry, which had been steadily mounting for hours now. “Drink some water, or you’ll get dehydrated.”

 

“I think that ship sailed about five hours ago,” Casey croaked. 

 

“Then you should definitely drink some water.”

 

“Why?” Casey moaned. “I may as well just pour it right into the bucket.” They were sitting side by side near the fire to keep Casey warm, Casey with an enamelled bucket between his knees and MacCready with an open can of purified water that he’d been trying to get Casey to keep drinking.

 

“Come on,” said MacCready, worry coming out as anger, holding the can up to Casey’s lips. He frowned and turned his head like a petulant child. If he couldn’t make Casey drink, MacCready didn’t know what he was going to do to stop him completely drying up. Suddenly, doing this on a rooftop in the middle of nowhere, with no access to medical attention, seemed really goddamned stupid. “ _Please_.”

 

“Bobby, I can’t, just leave me alone,” said Casey, and flopped sideways to rest his head on MacCready’s shoulder. They were both silent for a moment. MacCready wondered if he could wait for Casey to pass out, and find some way to pour water down his throat without drowning him. After a moment he thought Casey really had passed out and the panic was just flashing down his spine and breaking his skin out in a cold sweat, when Casey spoke again.

 

“There is… There is something you can do,” he said, as MacCready’s heart rate slowed a little. His voice was scratchy, and he sounded as if each word were being dragged from him. “But you’re not going to like it.”

 

“What? What is it? Casey - “

 

“It’s called rectal rehydration,” said Casey, squeezing his eyes closed.

 

“… _What?!_ ”

 

“I can’t keep water down,” said Casey. “But I have to get water inside me somehow in a way my body can’t reject, before we run out of useable water. I learned how to do it in the Army. If you have the right equipment it’s a really effective rehydration treatment.” He didn’t look at MacCready as he spoke, just waited for the reaction. MacCready stared at him. Casey’s eyes were dark circles in his pale face, his lips chapped and drawn tight over his teeth. The resemblance to a skull was frightening.

 

“Okay,” said MacCready at last. “How do we do it?”

 

Casey gave a sigh, but whether it was from relief or resignation MacCready wasn’t sure. “There’s a couple of empty IV bags and some tubing in my pack,” he said.

 

“Okay.” MacCready helped him sit upright against the wall while he rooted through the pack, and found the IV bags without too much trouble. He stared at the equipment in his hands. “Well, I guess _this_ is happening. Wait, how do I get the water in there?” he asked, panicking again suddenly.

 

“Cut the top off one of the bags,” said Casey. “Not the end with the valve, the other end. Attach it to the valve on the other bag, then fill the open top one with water. Just hold it upright and open the valves and the water will fill the bottom bag.”

 

“Right,” said MacCready, fumbling for his knife. “Right.” The job gave him something to think about besides what he was about to have to do. He did as he was told and sure enough, the bottom bag filled quickly and easily, without wasting a drop.

 

“Okay,” he said at last, holding the full IV bag. “Now what?”

 

Casey, in spite of his dehydration-induced weakness, managed to glare at him. “What do you think,” he said.

 

MacCready swallowed. “Right.”

 

~*~

 

As the sun rose an hour or so later Casey was finally asleep, and MacCready was working his way down one of the bottles of whiskey he’d hidden, Molotovs be damned. Man, he’d done some weird shit in his day, but this one was right up there. Once he’d started, he’d been too busy trying to make sure he did everything right to think too closely about exactly what he was doing, but now that he had some time to reflect, it was starting to catch him up. There were just some images that would be seared into your brain forever. They were rarely fun, and now MacCready had a brand new one to join the others he’d picked up along the way. He lit another cigarette with shaking fingers.

 

Thank God Casey had known what to do. MacCready didn’t know the Commonwealth well, and wouldn’t have wanted to strike out on his own to try and find a doctor. What had possessed him to suggest drying Casey out here, of all places? Surely Sanctuary would have been a better idea. Surely someone there would have been able to help - Curie, maybe. Hell, _Goodneighbor_ would have been a better idea than here.

 

Thankfully, it didn’t matter now. All MacCready had to worry about now was whether or not he’d ever be able to look Casey in the eye again. If he could then they’d be inseparable from now on, he knew; nothing quite like shoving a tube up a guy’s ass to firmly cement your friendship. He gave a shaky little giggle to himself, safe in the knowledge that Casey was completely out of it and wouldn’t hear him.

 

He drank until the world spun whenever he turned his head, aware of the irony in getting drunk while his friend tried not to die from the worst hangover in the universe, and checked quickly on Casey before turning in himself.

 

~*~

 

When he awoke, Casey was already awake and sitting on the cinder blocks by the fire, wrapped in a blanket. He still looked worryingly pale, his eyes dark holes in his head and his black hair wild, but even that was an improvement on yesterday. His head didn’t look so much like a skull now.

 

MacCready pushed himself upright and rubbed his eyes in the afternoon sunlight. “Hey, how you feeling, buddy?” He asked, a little too brightly. His head pounded a little in time with his heartbeat, but he wasn’t about to mention it.

 

“Like a Deathclaw reached down my throat and pulled all my insides out. And then stomped on my head.” His voice still sounded rough as hell.

 

MacCready grinned. “Isn’t that pretty much what happened?”

 

“Minus the Deathclaw, but yeah.”

 

“Could have been worse, then.”

 

“Well, if I’d been eaten by the Deathclaw, I wouldn’t be suffering right now,” said Casey.

 

“Oh come on. You survived the worst part.” MacCready yawned, standing up and stretching widely. He wandered across the roof to join him and sitting down. “You eaten yet?”

 

Casey paled still further, and shook his head. “Haven’t dared.”

 

“Water?”

 

At this, Casey gave a ghost of a grin. “Yeah, and you’ll be pleased to hear it stayed put this time.”

 

 _Oh thank God_. “That’s cool. You should try some Nuka-Cola next, get some sugar in your system.”

 

“Yeah. Listen, Bobby, thank you. I think I might actually have died yesterday if it wasn’t for you.”

 

MacCready waved this away. “Psh. Nah. I just did what you told me, you pretty much saved yourself.”

 

Out of nowhere Casey took his hand, and MacCready’s heart leapt into his throat.

 

“I mean it,” said Casey, dead serious now. “I don’t think I know many people who would have had the guts, if you’ll pardon the pun, to do what you did yesterday. You saved my life, Bobby, and I won’t forget it.”

 

MacCready recovered himself enough to squeeze Casey’s fingers. “Hey, you’ve saved my life twice now, and helped me save my son’s. I would pretty much do anything for you.”

 

At his words, Casey gave a smile that lit up his whole face like the sun. If MacCready had been worried about not being able to look at him the same way after yesterday, he needn’t have.

 

“The feeling’s mutual,” said Casey, and his smile turned into a grin. “Now cut all this mushy shit, you’re gonna make me cry and I need all my liquids right now.”

 

~*~

 

They stayed on the roof for another couple of days, reading comic books and talking about nothing in particular. They both seemed to have agreed that Casey had had enough to deal with over the last few days, and that talking about Gwen could wait for now. MacCready took advantage of the dusk, when night fell on the second day, to forage for food or water in the ruins around them, and came up with a surprising amount of it. Most of the water was dirty, but he would drink that himself and save the purified stuff for Casey. They had picked up some more Rad-X and Rad-Away from Daisy before they left, so that wasn’t a problem. He even managed to find a couple of radroaches scratching around in the dirt, and surprised them with a couple of silenced shots from Casey’s borrowed ten mil pistol. It wasn’t radstag, but it would be nice to eat something relatively fresh.

 

Hopefully soon they could get back to kicking some ass and making some caps, he reflected as he made his way back up to the roof. Maybe even find a way to traverse the Glowing Sea, and get another step closer to finding Shaun. If either of them could stop getting sick for five minutes together.

 

He came up over the top of the roof to find Casey napping, illuminated by the firelight; the sight made his heart flip over in his chest. It was another one of those moments that would stay with him for years and years afterward, but in a much more pleasant way that the other memory he would take from this place. He’d known that he was probably in love with Casey by this point, but up until this moment there had still been a part of him that could pretend it wasn’t real, that it wasn’t really happening. But for some reason the sight of Casey’s chest rising and falling with each breath was what did it. That was it - MacCready was done for, and no more denying it. This was Love, with a capital L.

 

Shit. Daisy was right. He’d never hear the end of it.

 

Not that it wasn’t bittersweet. He knew that Casey was in no position to be with anyone else right now. It might have been ten years in real time, but from Casey’s perspective he’d only lost Gwen a few short months ago. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved, Gwen included, to try and start something between them now. And maybe Casey didn’t even think of him like that. Sure he flirted, but he did that with everyone as easily as he breathed. Maybe the drunken attempted-kiss had been more about loneliness and grief than any kind of attraction to MacCready.

 

Aaaaaand he’d been down this road before. It never led anywhere good, only to endless second guessing and thinking in circles, driving himself crazy. MacCready resolved to concentrate on his other great love - money. Caps and ammo and winning fights, those were the things MacCreadies loved. He stole another glance at Casey, who was still sleeping peacefully.

 

Yeah, money. Important things.

 

~*~

 

When they finally arrived back in Sanctuary they were greeted almost immediately by a worried looking Preston.

 

“General Raines! Where have you been? I’ve had Minutemen looking all over the Commonwealth for you,” he panted as he ran up to them. Sweat was pouring down his face; he took off his hat to mop it up.

 

“What’s up, Preston?” Casey still looked tired if you looked closely, but Preston seemed more concerned with whatever it was that was on his mind. _Probably another kidnapped settler_ , MacCready thought, with more than a touch of derision. 

 

“I’m sorry, I know you’ve just got back, but there’s a bit of a situation at the Castle,” said Preston. MacCready rolled his eyes, but said nothing. He fished a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.

 

“We’ve had word of a planned attack by the Gunners,” Preston continued, and like a trained dog, MacCready’s ears pricked up.

 

“The Gunners?” he echoed, before Casey could say anything. “Why?”

 

Preston made a worried face. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to lose the Castle again. We only just got it back.” Casey clapped a hand on Preston’s shoulder.

 

“Don’t worry, buddy, we’re on our way. Just let me drop some stuff off first, okay? Let’s walk, you can give me the details.” He continued on up the road, leaving MacCready and Preston to trot along after him.

 

“The attack is reported to be planned for tomorrow,” said Preston. “Do you think you can make it there in time?”

 

“Tomorrow? Let’s see. I think so, if we leave now. Numbers?”

 

“Ours or theirs?”

 

“Both.”

 

Preston frowned. “I don’t have anything concrete about their numbers, but it could be as many as a hundred. Maybe more,” he said. That sounded about right; MacCready had never been to Quincy, but he knew enough about it from his time under Winlock and Barnes to know they had well over a hundred people stationed there.

 

“And ours?” Casey asked.

 

“… Ronnie has put the word out to the surrounding farms, they’re sending as many as they can spare. We didn’t want to put a call out on the radio and tip off the Gunners, though.” He hadn’t given a number; that was a bad sign. MacCready wondered how many bodies they’d have to throw at the Gunners. Eighty? Seventy? Less? Gunners were assholes, but they were trained assholes. One Gunner could easily be considered the equivalent of at least one or two newly-minted, barely trained Minutemen. 

 

“Numbers, Preston,” Casey repeated gently.

 

“… Maybe sixty.”

 

Casey whirled on him. “ _Sixty_? That’s it?”

 

“We have some good thick walls and a lot of fortifications,” said Preston, clearly ready for this. “The Minutemen there have been building more turrets and shoring up the defences, in addition to all the work you put in, General. And don’t forget there’s the artillery, we might even take a good chunk of them out before they even get near. Might even be enough to make ‘em think twice.”

 

Casey tapped his lip thoughtfully. “I’ll go through some of the farms near here on the way, see if I can get anyone else in,” said Casey. Preston nodded.

 

“Good idea, but try not to spend too much time on it,” he said. “The Minutemen need their General to lead them.”

 

“You got it,” Casey replied as they reached the house with the workshop bench outside. Casey had never been able to bring himself to move back in to his old place, but he seemed to like being able to see it. He turned back to Preston.

 

“General Raines, would you like me to go with you?” Preston asked. “There’s nothing here that can’t wait until I get back.”

 

MacCready looked at Casey with sudden alarm, already making up his mind to go with him either way, but he needn’t have worried. Casey shook his head.

 

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “Bobby loves any excuse to punch a Gunner, you know that.” He shot MacCready a grin, one that was quickly returned. Preston nodded his head. If he disapproved of MacCready’s motives, he didn’t show it. He never really seemed to show much of anything, not that MacCready had seen. The only time he’d ever heard Preston laugh was when they killed the Mirelurk Queen at the Castle. The place was his baby; no wonder he was so worried.

 

“In that case I’ll get word to the local farms around this area, so you can go straight on through.” He bowed his head. “General.” With that he left them to it, presumably to go right to Red Rocket and Abernathy Farm to see if they could spare anyone.

 

“You’re supposed to be resting,” said MacCready reproachfully, once Preston had disappeared. “You almost dried up a few days ago.” He knew it was futile, but he couldn’t not say anything. They set down their packs and MacCready began sorting through them and pulling out all the junk Casey had picked up on the way back.

 

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” said Casey, yawning and stretching his arms over his head. He wandered across the room, bopping one of his bobbleheads on the way, and flipped the radio on. “You hungry?”

 

“Not yet, but we should probably pack something if we can’t afford to stop on the way.”

 

“Yeah. We won’t need much, just something for the journey. They’ve got a pretty nice garden coming, up at the Castle. If the Gunners don’t flatten it. Hey, do you think we should take Power Armor?”

 

MacCready made a face. “ _You_ can, if you want,” he said. He’d wear it if Casey asked him to, but he really preferred being able to move quietly and quickly. “It’s hot out.”

 

“Might be worth considering,” Casey mused. “That way we can carry some bigger guns down there, kick a lot more ass, and carry more of their shit once we loot their bodies. Yeah, I’m sold. You want the flame suit or the shark one?”

 

 _Shit_. “Flames,” said MacCready.

 

“Cool, you can have the shark.”

 

“… Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a real technique, I first heard about it on some survival show years ago, and looked it up for reference here. If you want to know how to do it then you should look it up too, but if you really can’t be bothered, and if the need for this suddenly arises in your life somehow, then please just remember this if you remember nothing else: Do Not. Squeeze. The Bag.


	6. I Hear You Knockin' But You Can't Come In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m busy and you can’t come in, come back tomorrow night and try again. Casey and the Minutemen go into battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a longish chapter so buckle up kids. Gunners are assholes, and they are just falling over themselves to prove it. Lots of action and fighting and death. (And tickling.) Oh my!

And so it was that MacCready found himself stumping through the Commonwealth after Casey as the sun set, his mood souring with every step. He hated Power Armor for a number of reasons: it reminded him of the Brotherhood, it was noisy and unwieldy and rendered his natural agility void, made it impossible to sneak, and it meant Casey didn’t feel bad about loading him up with more junk to carry. Probably the part about it he hated most, however, was the way it was always too big for him and he had to move the footplates to the highest setting just so he wouldn’t split himself in half at the crotch getting into it. To add insult to injury, Casey had painted this particular suit with a gaudy cartoon shark after he found the design in a magazine at the Atom Cats garage. _Yeah, thanks a bunch, Zeke_. Casey was right, MacCready did like to take every opportunity to punch a Gunner, but he was beginning to wonder if this was really worth it. He hefted the missile launcher to get a better grip; he really must be in love with the guy to put up with this.

 

When they arrived the sun was just beginning to rise. Casey had insisted that they walk all night, and since it was either follow or let him go off into the darkness on his own, MacCready had saved himself the energy and held his tongue. It wouldn’t have helped. Instead of a greeting when she saw them clanging through the main gate, Ronnie spoke as if continuing a conversation they’d been having five minutes previously.

 

“We’ll need more turrets up top,” she said, in her gruff voice as she spotted them coming through the gate. “The attack will likely focus on the main gate, but we can’t leave the rest of the Castle defenceless. I’ve sent some scouts out, we’ll have some warning but it may not be much more than a few minutes.”

 

“I’m fine, thank you Ronnie, how are you?” Casey asked in his politest sarcastic voice. MacCready didn’t bother to hide his snort of laughter. They had walked all night to be here; Ronnie could at least _try_ and look pleased to see them.

 

Ronnie scowled; it was a good thing she wasn’t an Assaultron or the both of them would be piles of smoking ash by now, Power Armor or no Power Armor. “Cute,” she snapped. “Move your butts if you don’t want to die.” MacCready wasn’t sure if she meant that they would die if they were unprepared for the Gunner attack, or that she would kill them herself; wisely, he did not ask.

 

The Castle was bustling with activity, even at this hour; Ronnie had been overseeing the shoring up of defences, but there was clearly a deficit of turrets. The Minutemen had, at Casey’s direction and with Ronnie’s agreement, put up several massive concrete blocks to close up the gaps in the walls; it wasn’t pretty, but it sure wasn’t going anywhere. Any attackers would have to bust open the main gate in order to get in, as they’d be unable to penetrate anywhere else.

 

When the siren sounded MacCready was up on the wall, hastily helping a small group of Minutemen erect another guard post. He had exited the Power Armor to make the job easier, and now hopped back in it, readying the missile launcher. He looked around to see where the main attack would be coming from, and saw a scout running hell for leather up the main path. He looked down the scope and saw the first wave of Gunners at the other end of the path.

 

The door clattered shut behind the scout, and MacCready heard a heavy wooden bar fall into place. The Gunners would have a tough job getting in. Hopefully. He could have taken the shot, but the plan was for the artillery to take out the first wave, so he waited until he heard the warning call. He could see Casey on the other side of the courtyard, talking to a group of Minutemen. They looked young, but to their credit they looked more determined than scared.

 

The ground shook as the artillery fired, and the shock wave made MacCready’s head vibrate inside his helmet. After the artillery had taken the first hit, anyone with long range weapons had been instructed to fire at will, so MacCready dropped to one knee and took aim. It was hard to see through the dust cloud once the first artillery shot had hit, but he fired at it anyway, figuring it would hit something. The other three missiles followed quickly, between shots from the artillery.

 

For a moment after the artillery stopped MacCready wondered if the Gunners were going to rally from that hit, and he could tell that some of the Minutemen around him were wondering the same thing. He loaded another four missiles into the launcher anyway - experience told him to always prepare for your enemy to be less dead than you expected - and was pleased when the Minutemen around him followed his example and reloaded their guns as well. Soon after that the next wave of Gunners came through the smoke - MacCready saw several with missile launchers of their own, kneeling down and taking aim.

 

“ _Get down!_ ” he yelled at the Minutemen along the wall, and made for the stairs. Some of them simply fell flat where they were - the blast knocked MacCready right off the wall into the courtyard below. At least, that’s what must have happened, he reflected as he picked himself back up. He didn’t remember hitting the ground; he must have blacked out for a second. Even now he could see stars. He shook his head. The air rang with shouts and gunfire, the clang of the Minutemen’s laser rifles and the pop-pop-pop of the turrets up above. Even through the Power Armor helmet MacCready could smell smoke and gunpowder, and the coppery tang of blood. Could they have breached the gate already?

 

He whipped his head around wildly, looking for a target even as he pulled out his rifle - he had dropped the missile launcher in his fall, and it would be no good inside the courtyard anyway. Minutemen were rushing all over the place, scurrying along the top of the wall like ants, and he could see no sign of Casey. More than a few Minutemen lay on the ground, not moving.

 

Another blast rocked the Castle foundations - the ground shook beneath his feet. Were they literally trying to blast their way in? Or was that the artillery? Surely it wouldn’t be ready to fire again yet. He ran back toward the steps, determined to get up to the top of the wall and get a better look at what was going on.

 

Minutemen ringed the wall, leaning out from behind guard posts to fire at the Gunners and ducking back to reload. MacCready crouched down next to the nearest one - he didn’t need cover as much as the unprotected Minutemen did. “Any of ours outside the walls?” He asked the nearest one, a short woman with flame red hair and a button nose; she wouldn’t have looked out of place in Little Lamplight. She shook her head.

 

“Not yet,” she said, and stuck the barrel of her rifle back out, firing without bothering to take aim. MacCready pulled out some pulse grenades - they were for robots and synths, really, but it was all he had. It would still stun the fuckers. He flung them and turned away from the blast. Something thudded into the wall below from the outside.

 

To his right there was a great crash as the Gunners breached the main gate.

 

“Fuck,” said MacCready, and then, “Sorry Duncan.” He turned back toward the courtyard and jumped down; the ground shuddered as he landed with a crash of his own. Rifle out, he knelt down and waited for the Gunners to start pouring in.

 

From there, the chaos really started.

 

The battle could have taken an hour, it could have been three; by the time MacCready finally pulled off his battered helmet, he’d used all his Stimpaks and was close to needing another. He flexed his right elbow gingerly. Something felt broken in his lower arm; he could feel it grinding when he moved it. Dead Gunners and Minutemen lay all around the courtyard and outside the walls; the stench of blood and cooked meat reached down the back of his throat like a fat finger and tried to make him gag. He forced it away, clenching his teeth together and breathing hard through his nose. He lifted his head and looked for the flaming Power Armor; there was Casey, pulling off his own helmet, sweaty black hair sticking up around his head like a spiky crown, talking to Ronnie. She was sitting on an upturned crate with a medic behind her, looked like he was pulling a bullet out of her shoulder. She and Casey both looked grim and exhausted as they surveyed the damage around them. The Castle had not fallen, but it had come at a great cost.

 

The battle might be over but their work hadn’t even begun. Extensive repairs would be needed on the turrets and the walls, the main gate and the garden (which had been pretty badly trampled), as well as the radio generators which had been knocked out by a wayward grenade. The artillery lay in smoking ruins thanks to an almost direct missile hit. And all of this was in addition to the awful task of burying those of their comrades who had fallen, and dealing with the corpses of the Gunners, while those who remained were exhausted and shell-shocked and injured themselves. It would be a long time before anyone slept tonight.

 

MacCready released himself from his Power Armor, glad to be out of what had become a sweaty tin can and into the fresh air. When he walked around and looked at it from the front, he was suddenly really fucking glad Casey had insisted on it. If he hadn’t, MacCready might well be one of those bodies that would need burying. Finally Ronnie released Casey and he clanked slowly over to MacCready, smiling tiredly. It wasn’t a happy smile.

 

“You okay?” He asked softly. Here he was, battle-weary and still standing in the smoking near-ruins of the stronghold of his faction, about to have to oversee a mammoth cleanup operation and mass funeral, and his first question was to ask if MacCready was okay.

 

MacCready nodded. “Yeah. You?”

 

“Yeah.” Casey’s Power Armor opened up with a hiss, and he stepped back out of it. Without a word, he pulled MacCready into a hug. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I just need this. We lost a lot of good people today.”

 

MacCready wrapped his arms around Casey’s waist, buried his nose in Casey’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He needed it too, and he didn’t care who could see them. After a while he huffed a laugh. “You stink,” he said quietly, and Casey laughed.

 

“Yeah, well you’re pretty pungent yourself,” he retorted, pushing MacCready away to arms’ length. “Come on. Ronnie says everyone who can eat is to do so before anything else happens.” He threw a sweaty arm around MacCready’s shoulders and walked the both of them inside.

 

It wasn’t exactly a sit-down meal; people drifted in and out as they found time, or were pushed in on the orders of others, glassy-eyed and silent. When Casey and MacCready made it back outside, several people were already at work tending to the dead or the wounded. Casey found a couple of shovels, and handed one to MacCready.

 

“Best to leave those who knew them to tend to the dead. We can do the heavy lifting. I discussed it with Ronnie and she said we should bury them around back; there should be enough room, and we can make it a real graveyard and honour them properly. Put up a plaque or something.”

 

“What about the Gunners?”

 

“Loot and burn. Not in here, but not too far away. There’s too many of them to drag them far.”

 

MacCready nodded. “Okay. Let’s get digging, I guess.”

 

~*~

 

It couldn’t have been later than about one in the afternoon when they started, but the sun had long since set by the time they finished. A couple of Minutemen had hooked up a generator and some floodlights so that Casey and MacCready could see what they were doing. Gradually the graves accepted their occupants, in neat rows, not too far apart. There was only limited space. MacCready’s heart sank into his shoes as he saw the redheaded girl he’d spoken to during the battle, being lowered into one of them.

 

“What was her name?” he asked, once they’d laid her to rest.

 

“Pepper,” said one of them, sadly. “Wasn’t her real name. She never told us that. She only came to Jamaica Plain a week or so ago. Oh, she hated Gunners, though.” He stopped and smiled sadly. “Couldn’t wait to get out here and kick their asses around a little.” 

 

MacCready nodded. He was about to ask how old she had been, but found himself not wanting to know. “A girl after my own heart,” he said instead. “She fought hard. I’m sorry.” The Minuteman nodded, lips pressed together, blinking quickly.

 

It was long past midnight by the time the exhausted Minutemen got the pyre started for the Gunners. They had stripped them of anything useful - guns, ammo, anything else they had happened to be carrying. Such was life in the Wastes - and thrown the bodies into a pile at the bottom of the path up to the main gate. As Casey had said, there were too many to drag them far. MacCready had helped, taking vicious pleasure in dragging the corpses around like bags of cement. He hoped one of the ones he’d handled had been the one who killed Pepper.

 

~*~

 

When MacCready awoke the next day, the sun was already high in the sky. He blinked sleepily for a while, and then guiltily remembered how much work they still had ahead of them. He rolled over to wake Casey, but the other was already gone. MacCready shook his head, cursing himself, and dragged on his duster and hat.

 

Casey was up on the wall, screwdriver in hand, fixing turrets. Both the Power Armor suits stood next to the workshop bench, all their plating removed ready for repair. Another group of Minutemen were working busily on fixing the artillery, under Ronnie’s terse supervision. MacCready’s stomach rumbled, but he climbed the steps and made his way to Casey.

 

“What can I do, boss?” He asked. Casey spared a glance over his shoulder.

 

“Grab me some more desk fans and get the screws out of them, will you? Then I think Ronnie could do with a hand repairing the artillery.”

 

It was going to be a busy day.

 

~*~

 

The day rushed by in a whirl of activity; turrets were fixed, the main gate, radio and generators were cobbled back together, trampled crops replanted. MacCready spent the day helping out wherever he was needed, biting his tongue every time Ronnie barked new orders at him. She seemed to have forgotten that he wasn’t a Minuteman, but he wasn’t about to be an asshole about it after everything that had happened. As the sun set, finally it all started to wind down. A couple of people had been pulled off cleanup and repair duties to get the grills going, and the smell of cooking radstag meat seemed to lift everyone’s spirits. People were sitting around in the courtyard in little knots, eating grilled meat and razorgrain bread, and popping caps off beer bottles. The mood was still quiet, but not quite as sombre as it had been the day before. The Minutemen were wounded, but they would heal.

 

MacCready had reached the point where he could smell his own sweat wafting up from his armpits every time he moved, and so with little left to fix, he snuck off for a sponge bath and a shave before Ronnie could throw any more jobs at him. A few other people had already had the same idea. Four or five were already in the makeshift bathroom and the water had clearly already been used several times, but MacCready cared about as much as anyone else did - which was to say, not even a tiny bit.

 

He stripped off his duster, hat, scarf and shirt, and got to work. His Power Armor had saved him from a lot of damage, but he still had a few choice bruises from clattering around inside the thing like dice in a cup. Power Armor was made with people larger than MacCready in mind - no wonder Danse liked it so much. _Must fit him like a glove_ , MacCready reflected, with more than a touch of bitterness. MacCready hated being jealous of him, and he would have died before admitting it, but the man had biceps the size of his head. He inspected the bruises on his own weedy arms with a grimace.

 

It felt so good to scrub away the filth of the battle, and the filth of the Commonwealth underneath it too, that he soon forgot about Danse. His hair finally got that wash it had so badly needed; he smiled to himself. He’d really have to find a barber here soon. That or a hair tie. He shaved in the cracked mirror above the sink, put his shirt back on and stripped off his boots and pants to bathe his lower half.

 

Finally, tired and sore but clean, he emerged from the bathroom. His spirit felt refreshed, centred. He took a deep breath and headed for the courtyard in search of food - and ran right into Casey, who blinked.

 

“Wow, what’s _your_ name, handsome?” he asked, and MacCready made a face at him.

 

“Ha ha, funny. You’re a regular comedian, Case.”

 

Casey squinted at him. “Bobby? That you? Huh. So that’s what you look like. _Damn_ , you clean up well.” He brushed a thumb along MacCready’s freshly shaven jaw, inspecting his face carefully. MacCready swatted his hand away.

 

“Shut up,” he said, but smiled as he spoke. Casey’s expression was so warm, it was hard to look at it for long. MacCready could feel himself blushing and cleared his throat, pulling his hat further down to hide his face. _I’m a grown man, what the hell is wrong with me?_ He shook his head at himself; Casey huffed a laugh.

 

“You’re adorable. There’s radstag left but not much, I’d grab some before it’s gone,” he added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Beer, too. There’s no Gwinnett, but there’s still regular beer if you hurry.” With that, Casey winked and went on his way, leaving MacCready to stare after him.

 

 _Adorable?_ He touched a finger to his jaw where Casey had brushed his thumb. MacCready was tired and overwrought and he didn’t think he could keep resisting Casey’s relentless flirting forever. One of them had to be the strong one; the last thing MacCready wanted was to let himself become vulnerable for the first time since Lucy died, only to get his heart broken by a man who wasn’t ready to move on from the death of his own wife. He didn’t want to be a port in a storm, and he didn’t see how he could be anything else.

 

The radstag was nothing special, just butchered and flung onto a grill, but to MacCready’s exhausted body and mind it was like mana from heaven. The beer was warm, and he didn’t think he’d ever tasted anything so refreshing. He was just starting to relax when that godawful violin music started up again, for the first time since before the battle - the Minutemen gave a ragged cheer, and MacCready suppressed a groan. Was it too late for them to leave now? Maybe he could convince Casey that they would get further under cover of darkness. He was just making up his mind to finish his meal and go find Casey, when the man himself plopped down next to him on the bench.

 

“There, that’s settled,” he said, before MacCready could open his mouth.

 

“What is?” MacCready asked, curiosity getting the better of his desire to leave the Minutemen and their terrible music taste behind.

 

“Ronnie’s going to take over day to day operations here,” said Casey. “She was reluctant, but only because she likes disagreeing with me.”

 

“I thought she was pretty much already in charge around here anyway,” MacCready asked.

 

“Yeah, but it’s a more permanent handing-over-the-reins. I’m delegating.”

 

“So we don’t have to come here any more?” It was hard not to sound too happy about this, but Casey didn’t seem to notice.

 

“Not unless the Gunners attack again. And on that note, I have an idea I’d like to run by you.”

 

MacCready frowned, interested. “What?”

 

“You remember how Preston said the Gunners chased the last of the Minutemen out of Quincy?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well, Ronnie’s scouts say that the Gunners seem to have really settled in down there. Looks like it’s their main operation these days.” MacCready liked where this seemed to be going.

 

“Okay,” he prompted, not wanting to jump the gun.

 

“I think the Minutemen ought to take Quincy back. What do you think?” Casey asked. He seemed to already know what MacCready would think of this idea. MacCready grinned.

 

“Oh, God, yes,” he breathed. Winlock and Barnes might be long since dead, but that didn’t mean MacCready had stopped hating Gunners more generally. Word of what had happened at Mass Pike had to have reached the rest by now, and even if they had no way of knowing that MacCready was behind it, there were probably a few bright enough to put it together. Especially since he’d been palling around with the Commonwealth’s newest celebrity for months now, taking out any Gunners they happened to run into. Even basic raiders knew who Casey was, if their terminal entries were anything to go by, and the Gunners were smarter than them. Only marginally, but it was enough to make MacCready want to finish them off before they came after him again.

 

He had no idea how they would do it, though. Sure, the Gunners had weakened themselves in the attack on the Castle, and now had a hundred or so fewer men, but that didn’t mean they would go down without a fight.

 

“We gonna march down there in force?” MacCready asked.

 

“Not yet. It’ll be just you and me for now, maybe some Power Armor. Do some recon. These guys have been through enough,” he added, jerking his head at the Minutemen in the courtyard around them. “I’m willing to bet the Gunners sent a good chunk of their guys here to die yesterday, their defences will be low.”

 

Though MacCready had been dying to get away from the violins as fast as possible, he knew now that he’d have to put up with it a while longer. He sighed.

 

“Okay. But if it’s just you and me, you need to rest up first,” he insisted. “You almost shrivelled up less than a week ago, and you can’t have slept more than five hours in the last three days.”

 

Casey grinned. “Such concern. You’re too sweet.” He touched a hand to MacCready’s still-damp hair, and got swatted away for his trouble. It just made him grin wider. “All right,” he said, dropping his hand. “We’ll rest here a while before we hit Quincy. Power Armor still needs fixing up anyway, and we’ll have to wait for the next caravan. We used all the steel on the turrets.”

 

~*~

 

The next few days were spent with MacCready finding any and every excuse to be out of earshot of the Castle for as long as he possibly could. Ronnie asked for volunteers to hunt for mirelurks down by the waterfront, and Casey had smirked when MacCready threw his hand in the air. In truth it wasn’t just the violins that made him want to escape for a while, but he didn’t correct him. MacCready had worried that Casey might want to go too, but he had elected to stay and tinker with the Power Armor, patch up the holes and maybe throw a few mods on there while he was at it. It was a relief; it meant Casey wouldn’t exert himself too much and could rest if he got tired, and also that MacCready could have a bit of a breather from his constant presence.

 

On the evening of the third day they found themselves on top of the wall, watching the sun sink behind the city. MacCready had a beer; he’d offered one to Casey, but the latter had paled and held up a hand. It would be a while before he trusted himself with alcohol again. He sipped a Nuka-Cola instead, flipping the cap up in the air and catching it. He had definitely perked up since his brush with death by dehydration almost a week ago now.

 

“What about that one?” Casey asked, pointing up.

 

“‘The Raider’s Warning’,” said MacCready. Casey snorted.

 

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said. “Kinda looks like a corpse hanging from a wall. We used to call it Orion.”

 

“Orion,” MacCready repeated. “That some kind of god or something?”

 

“Yeah, hunter god, I think. Not sure whose. Could be Roman or Greek, I don’t fuckin’ know.”

 

MacCready snorted. “You know, you’re one of the few people left who know anything about the world before the war,” he said. “Seems like you should have paid more attention in school. I’m just saying.” He flashed a grin at Casey, who flipped him off.

 

“Fuck you,” he said, with an easy grin of his own. “At least I never believed baseball was played to the death.”

 

“It sounds way more fun like that than the actual way,” MacCready retorted. “What’s so fun about just hitting a ball with a stick?”

 

“There’s running around, too, y’know,” Casey pointed out.

 

“Oh yeah, _that_ makes a difference,” said MacCready. “And people used to pay money to just, _watch_ this happen? They didn’t even play it themselves?”

 

“Yup. Well, people _did_ play it themselves. A lot of schools had Little League teams. But the big games were all professionals.”

 

MacCready couldn’t wrap his head around this. The idea of being so free and safe, of being able to just watch or play a game without the need to have people standing guard with weapons in case of attack… It blew his mind. And to go, as Casey had, from that world to this, in the space of what was for him only a few short months. Hell, for all he knew it had been twenty four hours, if that. MacCready thought that if it had happened to him, his mind would simply have shattered under the strain.

 

“I don’t know how you do it,” he said staring up into the sky, awed all over again by how well Casey seemed to be coping with everything that had happened to him. With everything that was still happening to him.

 

“Well I did explain the rules to you,” said Casey, having, obviously, not followed MacCready’s train of thought. He was still on baseball.

 

“No, I mean… Going from that world to this one. I’d have lost my mind.”

 

“I’m not completely sure that I haven’t.”

 

“Well, you wear it well,” said MacCready. Now that he heard himself say it, it sounded a bit more flirty than he’d meant it, and Casey grinned at him. 

 

“Insanity is a good look on me? Thanks, babe, you’re a peach.”

 

“Shut up,” said MacCready, trying to be mad and failing. “You know what I mean.”

 

Casey smiled fondly at him. “Yeah, I know. I would have gone nuts a lot faster without you,” he said quietly. “Might even have drank myself to death.”

 

“Come on, shut up. You know you wouldn’t, you still have to find Shaun.”

 

“I might not have done it on purpose.”

 

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” said MacCready. “Do you know what you wanna do when you do find him?” He didn’t want to think too much about Casey drinking himself to death. “If you’ll stay here or move on?”

 

Casey shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe stay here. Or not. I know the Minutemen need a leader, but it doesn’t have to be me. I know I’ll take some time off to be with Shaun, that’s for sure.”

 

MacCready nodded. The thought occurred to him, not for the first time since Daisy brought it up, that he might suggest that Casey and Shaun come back to the Capital Wasteland with him. If Casey found himself wanting to get Shaun away from all of this. He would be going back himself either way, but it would be nicer to have company.

 

“What about you?” Casey asked. “I would have thought you’d want to go back to Duncan by now.”

 

MacCready smiled. “I do,” he admitted. “I got business here first, though. He’ll understand.”

 

Casey looked at him until he was sure he had MacCready’s full attention. His brown eyes were wide and sincere. “You don’t have to stay here for me,” he said.

 

“Who said anything about you?” MacCready grinned. “I gotta make me some caps first - hey - ” He managed to put his beer out of reach as Casey attacked him, laughing. They rolled over until MacCready was on his back, grabbing uselessly at Casey’s hands. Casey pinned MacCready’s hips with his knees and took both of his wrists in one hand, holding them up over his head. He stuck a finger into MacCready’s armpit and wiggled it - MacCready gasped and tried to jerk his hands back.

 

“Oh, ticklish? Good to know,” said Casey, and continued mercilessly. 

 

“S - stop!” MacCready managed through his laughter. “ _Stop_ , you asshole!”

 

“You did a swear, Bobby, you know what that means,” said Casey, and dug his finger in further.

 

MacCready didn’t know which horrified him more - the fact that Casey had discovered his fatal weakness or the semi it was rapidly producing. He twisted himself to one side before Casey could figure out what was happening to him, and managed to pull his wrists out of Casey’s grasp at the same time. “You dick,” he gasped, half pissed off and half still laughing. Casey sat back on his heels, grinning from ear to ear as MacCready scrambled out of reach.

 

“You’re fun to tease,” he said.

 

“I guess so, since you’ve been doing it for weeks,” said MacCready, trying to find a way to sit that hid his crotch from view.

 

“I’m sorry,” said Casey, not sounding especially sorry. MacCready frowned at him.

 

“What even _are_ you?” he asked. “Last week you apologise for trying to kiss me, and now this?” He sighed. “Not that I don’t like it, but… I don’t know. I just… I don’t know where I am with you. And what about Gwen? It’s been what, six months?”

 

Casey sighed, silliness melting away. “You’re right, I really am sorry,” he said. “I’m a fuck-up, I know. I like you, Bobby. A lot. And it’s not that I’m over Gwen, exactly, it’s just… I don’t want to feel sad all the time. It hurts and it’s horrible and when I’m with you, I can forget it for a while. You’re fun. I like being with you. I don’t mean to lead you on.”

 

“Well, you are,” said MacCready, his heart sinking a little. “I wanna help you, I really do, but this is kinda messing with my head.”

 

Casey nodded, silently, and watched the sunset for a moment. He looked like he was working himself up to say something. Finally, he spoke. “Do you want to take a break from travelling with me for a while?” he asked. MacCready sighed, glad that Casey had suggested it first.

 

“No,” he said honestly. “But I think it might be best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhhhh nooooo, is it all over before it's begun?? (Spoiler alert: I doubt it.)


	7. Picket Fence and Ramblin' Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Those dear hearts and gentle people will never ever let you down. And neither will raiders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry it took seven chapters to get to the smut. Well done if you’re still here - I hope this is worth the wait…
> 
> Oh and also, just as a general advisory, this chapter gets explicit real fast so. There's that.

They reached Sanctuary without major incident, and dropped off all the junk Casey had found. It would keep Sturges going for a while; he was putting the finishing touches to Mama Murphy’s Pink Flamingo Bar and Cafe, and Casey had been collecting glass for the neon lettering. They swapped all of their gear around so that Casey could take all the valuables he could carry to Diamond City; he left the rest with MacCready, with instructions to sell it once Trashcan Carla showed up. Finally Casey was ready to go, pack as light as he could make it.

 

Casey and Piper left the next day, clanking over the bridge in the Power Armor. Piper was wearing the shark; Casey had moved the footplates back down again. MacCready watched them go, heart in his boots. If he didn’t watch himself then someone would catch him moping and he would give himself away to everyone here, and he didn’t know if he was ready for everything _that_ meant. He made himself turn away. He knew he and Casey both needed this, he really did, but that didn’t mean it was easy watching him walk away. It felt like watching all the colour drain out of his life.

 

As hard as it was to watch Casey leave, it did feel like he had room to breathe now, without having to try and interpret every look, every word. It was a relief physically, as well as emotionally: it meant he got a chance to heal up properly after the battle at the Castle, and take a real break from wandering the Wastes, and enjoy knowing that he’d finished his part of the mission to make Duncan well again. Stimpaks were great at healing cuts and broken bones, but they did nothing for exhaustion and stress. Fortunately, MacCready knew of something that _did_ relieve both those things, though he hadn’t had a chance to take advantage of it for months. Sleeping next to Casey meant they could watch out for each other, but it sucked as far as privacy went. He was getting to the stage where a stiff breeze could get him hard. Casey must be having the same problem, but MacCready had no idea how he was dealing with it. And imagining Casey dealing with it was doing nothing to help.

 

The thought of doing it felt like a sinful luxury, like always, but no amount of shame was going to stop him. It felt like hiding some kind of delicious treat so no-one else could have any; his hot little secret. The first chance he got, late one night not long after Casey had left, MacCready turned out all the lights in Casey’s house, shut all the doors he could and took off his duster, hanging it carefully over the back of a chair. He shucked off his pants and peeled his shirt over his head, taking the time to enjoy running his hands over his own skin. It was so nice to feel something good for once, instead of pain and exhaustion and discomfort, that he was determined to take his time and enjoy it.

 

He ran his hands slowly down his chest, grazing his nipples once or twice as he went, and slid his fingers under the waistband of his underwear, pushing them slowly down his bony hips and letting them drop. His palms skirted over his hips and thighs, leaving his dick untouched for now, and skimming around behind himself to squeeze his scant ass, enjoying the feeling of cool air between his cheeks as he pulled them apart. His head fell back and he closed his eyes as he circled his hole with the tip of one finger; he could already feel a drop of pre-come sliding down the underside of his dick. He dipped his hand lower, spreading his legs, brushing his balls from behind and cupping them, rolling them between his fingers. He tugged on them gently; the movement pulled down on the base of his dick, sending a jolt of pleasure up his spine and making him sigh aloud. He’d have to be somewhat careful; it was late, sure, but there was no glass in any of the windows around here. Having to keep quiet only added to the thrill, however.

 

His eyes were adjusting to the dark now, and he could see the outline of his dick jutting proudly up from between his legs by the starlight. Not touching it was killing him by inches, but in the most delicious way. He knew that once he started it wouldn’t be long, and he didn’t want it to be over too soon. He was dripping now, the pre-come stretching out into a long clear string from the tip of his dick to the floor. Suddenly the string stretched too far and broke - a tiny touch of cold at its source had him gasping. He always had leaked a lot when he was hard. He wondered if Casey did, too. What a glorious mess they could make together - and didn’t _that_ thought just send a hot little thrill of anticipation to his solar plexus.

 

By hand, or between pillows? With the way his cock was leaking he didn’t want to ruin Casey’s pillows, but once the thought had taken hold he couldn’t resist it. Somewhere in his pack he knew there was an old flannel shirt they’d found in an abandoned Fallon’s. If he could wrap that around his dick it would protect the pillows and be easy to clean; he could even keep it for re-use. He felt his way to where he’d left his pack, stepping carefully in the dark and laughing a little at his own dick as it bounced and wobbled ahead of him, as if trying to sniff the shirt out for itself. It didn’t take him long to find it - it was the only fabric that soft in there, among the armor and guns. He had a little bottle of corn oil that he used for cooking sometimes; he fished that out of his pack too.

 

He made his way back to the bed and knelt on the mattress, knees apart, laying the shirt carefully in front of him. He wasn’t ready to go for the home stretch just yet. He flipped open the bottle and poured a small amount onto his fingers, and reached down to set the bottle on the floor. He bent over and rested his oil-free hand on the mattress and went down on one elbow - the movement spread his cheeks wide open. Carefully, achingly slowly, he brushed the oil around his hole, and pushed just the tip of one finger inside himself. He had to bite his lip to keep from groaning as a flash of hot pleasure and sweat rushed over his skin like sheet lightning through thunderclouds. His dick, hanging heavy between his spread legs, jumped and pushed out another thick string of pre-come, dripping onto the shirt. Could he come just from this? In his sexually-neglected state he thought he probably could. A few little wiggles of his finger and he _knew_ he could - he stilled, not wanting this to end just yet. 

 

He knelt like that for a few moments, breathing slowly through his nose, easing himself back from the brink. He hadn’t gone any further in than the tip, but he didn’t want to remove the finger in case even just that was enough. As he waited to withdraw it, the finger gave one or two involuntary twitches that made him see stars. Finally, he was able to carefully let it slip out; he felt the muscle contract, and the slickness of the oil still left behind made him shudder and bite his lip again. He pushed himself up off his elbow and pulled two of the pillows between his knees, laying one on top of the other and the shirt over both; the arrangement nestled up against his dick and balls, taking some of the weight of them. The pillows were cool against his inner thighs. He wrapped the shirt loosely around his cock, shuddering at the warm velvety sensation of the cloth, and laid a third pillow on top; his hips had already started to move of their own accord.

 

He sat back on his heels, increasing the pressure from below, and pushed down with his hands as he thrust into the tight heat of the flannel; this really wasn’t going to take long. He fucked up into the pillows, almost crying now from the pressure that was building inside him as the soft flannel caressed his aching cock. Distantly he realised he was giving short little cries with each outward breath - “oh… oh… oh…” He pressed his lips together to quiet himself, feeling the pressure build up and past the breaking point - a little strangled cry tore from his throat as he finally came, ejaculating over and over, skin tingling from his head to his toes.

 

Once he could breathe again, he withdrew from the pillows, pulling the shirt out still wrapped around himself. His head felt too heavy on his neck. Slowly he pulled the shirt off his still-hard dick, using it to clean himself as he did so. The sensation of the flannel rubbing along his oversensitive cock sent jolts of electricity shuddering through him. He dropped the shirt on the floor, still wrapped up in a ball, and fell forward onto the pillows. His whole body and soul felt clean and light; he took a breath, letting the cool air fill his lungs, and smiled to himself in the dark. It felt a little like floating away on Med-X, but not so disconnected; all his aches and pains and worries were blotted out in the drowsy afterglow. He pulled the blanket up over himself and let his whole body relax.

 

For once, sleep found him easily that night.

 

~*~

 

A week passed, and then a month; it wasn’t unusual for Casey to be away that long but MacCready couldn’t help but worry. He passed the time running errands for Sturges and helping tend the garden. It wasn’t exactly exciting, but at least no-one was shooting at him.

 

Until someone shot at him.

 

He was holding a hammer at the time, boarding up some of the gaping holes in one of the houses near the top of the hill. He dropped the hammer and reached for his gun to fire back - but it wasn’t there. The telltale _smash-whump_ of a Molotov cocktail sounded from the other side of the house, followed quickly by an anguished cry from one of the settlers. MacCready dropped low, hoping that would be enough to hide him until he could put his hands on a weapon. Someone’s pipe pistol pop-popped in retaliation. He picked up an abandoned shovel that someone had left propped up near the front door, and crept around to the back of the house.

 

The turrets were having trouble finding the intruders through the scrubby hedge; they clicked and whirred disconsolately, losing targets as quickly as they found them, barely firing a shot. MacCready saw one of the attackers crouching low and lighting another Molotov. He crept around the hedge, shovel in hand, and swung it as hard as he could at the back of the asshole’s head.

 

One down.

 

He looted Asshole’s grenades and gun - a shitty pipe pistol, of course it fucking was, raiders wouldn’t know a decent gun if you shot them with it - and went looking for the rest.

 

“Where are they?” He heard someone ask, in a panicky voice. Up ahead, he heard the distinctive BOOM of Hancock’s shotgun - at least someone had had the sense to tool up today. If MacCready had done the same he wouldn’t have to worry about this piece of shit jamming and blowing his hand off.

 

Fortunately the rest of the settlement had reacted quickly, and the attack wasn’t serious. The rest of the raiders ran off once the first few had gone down. In the face of a grinning ghoul with a tricorner hat, a shotgun and a bad attitude, MacCready couldn’t say with any confidence that he wouldn’t have done the same.

 

“Yeah, we showed ‘em,” said one of the settlers, as everyone went back to work. MacCready frowned. That had been way too easy.

 

He said as much to Preston and Sturges; they seemed to agree. They decided to up the security a little, and took turns keeping watch alongside the assigned guards. Sturges said he’d put a few things together, and came back with some nasty-looking traps.

 

“Better warn everybody to keep away from the back of the houses,” he said cheerfully, setting one on Preston’s desk and carefully pushing open the fearsome jaws. “Stand back,” he warned, and jammed a fence post between them, muscles rippling as he lifted it over his head - they snapped shut with a metallic clang, almost shattering the post. Hancock gave a worryingly filthy chuckle at this, black eyes glittering.

 

“Nice,” he said, with an approving nod, black eyes glittering. MacCready swallowed, unable to help picturing what the things would do to a leg.

 

“Is that really necessary?” Preston asked Sturges, looking doubtful.

 

“Wish we’d had a couple of these babies in Quincy,” was all Sturges said in reply, patting one. Preston pursed his lips, but nodded.

 

“All right. Make sure everyone knows were you set them, and to stay away,” he said. It was a mark of how hard the Gunners had hit them that Preston was ready to let Sturges set these things up.

 

Sure enough, a few nights later a much larger attack came. MacCready was roused from sleep by the sound of agonised screaming. As he exited the house, his own gun firmly in hand this time, the sky began to glow orange at the top of the hill. He dropped to one knee and looked down the scope; apparently Sturges had set up some kind of fire-trap, too - a few raiders were running out of the fireball behind the houses, yelling and beating at themselves in a vain attempt to put out the flames. MacCready smirked and put one of them out of his misery, then another.

 

He was taking aim at a third when something zipped past his ear - he was flat on the ground in a second. _What the fuck?_ To his rising horror he realised they were coming from all directions. He pushed himself up, still keeping low, and got himself behind the workbench. Looking around he could see settlers and Casey’s friends alike, all putting up a good fight. Even Mama Murphy had a gun in one hand, and a Jet inhaler in the other - God knew where she’d got it from. Hancock, probably.

 

This was a co-ordinated attack, MacCready realised. This wasn’t some bunch of opportunists. What were they here for? Whatever it was, MacCready was pretty sure they wouldn’t be deterred by a few shotgun blasts and a shovel this time.

 

Unfortunately he was right. The fight was short, but nasty; they repelled the attack and took no prisoners, but it did not come without cost. One settler was shot dead and another took a shotgun blast to the thigh, and lost too much blood. Sturges did everything he could, but the poor guy didn’t see the sun rise the next morning. Bad way to go, MacCready thought grimly.

 

He and Hancock and a few of the others mopped up the raiders, looted them and set what was left on fire a little way down the hill, out of sight of the houses.

 

“What the fuck was that all about, I wonder,” said Hancock thoughtfully, as they stood and watched the grisly pile go up in flames. It smelled like cooking meat; MacCready’s stomach roiled uneasily.

 

“What do you mean? They probably just thought this place was a soft touch,” he said. “Especially if they heard Casey was out of town.”

 

Hancock stared thoughtfully at the fire. If the smell bothered him, he didn’t show it. “You think so?” he asked. “Didn’t they seem a little organised to you?”

 

“Well… yeah, but that was what the first attack was for, right? Feeling us out, find out what our defences were like.”

 

The ghoul did not seem convinced. “And what did they want? They didn’t seem to be looking for anything. No, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of these particular shitheads,” he opined, and trudged off back up the hill. MacCready watched him go.

 

It couldn’t have anything to do with the attack on the Castle, right? Gunners didn’t usually give a shit about getting their hands dirty, why would they bother hiring raiders to do a job they could do easily - and more efficiently - themselves? Besides, Gunners were the ones who got hired, they didn’t tend to do the hiring.

 

Maybe Hancock was being paranoid. Hell, MacCready of all people knew why a tendency toward paranoia was a healthy trait in a mayor. His own paranoia and instinctive belief that everyone who walked through the gates would stoop to fucking over a bunch of kids had saved Little Lamplight on more than one occasion. It was pretty easy to believe that Hancock had had to fight to keep Goodneighbor safe from attack, too.

 

He decided to talk to Preston about it; even if there was nothing they could do, it wouldn’t hurt to make him aware.

 

~*~

 

When Casey had been gone for six weeks, MacCready knew he was either being actively avoided or Casey had gone into the Glowing Sea without him. The latter option scared him badly. MacCready was a coward, he was the first to admit it - why else would he choose to specialise in long-range weaponry? Worse than the thought of dying himself, though, was the thought of Casey doing it in the Glowing Sea without him. Piper would do her best, but MacCready wouldn’t have trusted _anyone_ to go with Casey.

 

He found himself looking wistfully south on more than one occasion, wondering if he was looking right in Casey’s direction. If he _had_ gone in, how had he done it? The Power Armor would probably do, and offer some physical protection as well, but it wasn’t really designed for radiation. Unless Casey had thrown some extra lead plating on there while MacCready had been hunting mirelurks at the Castle. Maybe he’d found a hazmat suit or two? The things were expensive, and MacCready couldn’t remember when he’d last seen a vendor who even had one to sell. Could he have found one? Two, even? He had promised not to go in alone after all, and MacCready trusted him at least that much.

 

Finally, after two and a half months, the weather was starting to cool and MacCready was beginning to wonder if he should start looking for him. Maybe he could send messages with the supply caravans to the other settlements, see if anyone had seen him pass through. Would it be weird? They weren’t… _together_. MacCready didn’t feel as though he had any right to worry. Besides, no-one else in Sanctuary seemed overly concerned at his continued absence.

 

He had had a message from Daisy, who had given up waiting for him to show and sent word via the caravans herself. The note had been addressed to him care of Casey, because she had known that it was more likely to reach him unopened that way. Her handwriting was a beautiful, flowing script; one he’d been completely unable to read. He’d finally given up and taken the fucking thing to Preston. It was the second time MacCready had ever seen him smile.

 

“Dear MacCready,” he’d read.

 

“Where the heck have you been? I had word weeks ago from your homestead, I told you to drop by when you came through this way again but I’ve seen hide nor hair of you or Vault Boy.

 

“Duncan is well, my guy couldn’t stay long but he said that when he left, the kid was up and running around. Your friend, said her name was Princess, said he hadn’t been out of bed for weeks before that. The boils were starting to go down, and the local doctor said it looked like he’d make a full recovery.

 

Duncan himself apparently asked my guy to pass on a message for you, and I’m quoting here: ‘I love you daddy, and I miss you, please come home soon! I want to use that pistol you gave me, but Princess says I’m not allowed to touch it till you get home. Love, your little Baby Bear.’

 

“I knew you’d want to know, so I hope this finds you quickly. Come by and kiss an old ghoul on the cheek sometime before you head home, and let me know how that other thing we talked about is going.

 

Love,

 

Daisy.”

 

MacCready couldn’t help it; he pinched at his eyes, lowering his head to hide his face under his hat. They had done it! They had saved Duncan! His baby boy was going to live, to grow up and get married and have kids of his own and be happy. Suddenly he missed his son with a powerful ache; he’d been so worried, and so intent on getting the cure, that he hadn’t had time to miss his little Baby Bear. Even knowing he had promised Casey he’d help him find Shaun, it was really hard not to get up and go back to the Capital Wasteland, right then and there. Preston coughed and shuffled his feet, clearly a little uncomfortable.

 

“You okay?” he asked. MacCready just nodded, holding his hand out for the letter. Preston handed it over. “I didn’t know you had a little boy. I’m really happy that he’s recovering,” he said quietly, and MacCready nodded his thanks.

 

Casey would be so happy when he found out, MacCready knew. He was half wondering if he should send the note back out on the caravans, to see if it would find Casey himself. Perhaps he could add his own little note at the bottom. He’d been so worried for his son for so long, however, that he was reluctant to give up the only solid proof he had that Duncan was going to be okay. How would he know he hadn’t dreamed it?

 

No, the note had been for him, and it contained words directly from his son. His little Baby Bear. He folded the note carefully and placed it in the inside pocket of his duster, where it nestled next to the little toy soldier that Lucy had made him.

 

He felt lighter than he had in years; but even so, there was still his new worry. What had become of Casey?

 

~*~

 

It was another two weeks - almost three months, all told - before MacCready heard the familiar hiss and clank of Power Armor clumping over the bridge toward Sanctuary. He dropped his shovel and was about to go running out to meet him, but pulled himself short at the last second.

 

What was he doing? They weren’t a couple. Sure, they were friends; probably closer even than that, but it would still be strange for him to go running up to greet him. That was Dogmeat’s job, surely. He picked up the shovel again, heart racing, and continued tending the mutfruit trees. Casey would come find him when he was ready. If it was definitely him and not fucking Danse again; the Brotherhood meathead had been in and out a few times since Casey had left. 

 

He waited and waited, turning over the same patch of earth over and over again. Finally he heard voices, and the unmistakeable shuffle and clank of Casey dropping all his junk off by the work bench.

 

Two sets of Power Armor hissed as their occupants vacated them, and then MacCready knew it was him for sure. His heart leapt into his throat, but he stayed where he was. Casey would come and find him when he was ready. He probably had a ton of stuff to do first, and he must be tired and hungry. The last thing he needed was MacCready leaping all over him like an excited puppy.

 

He was probably killing this poor mutfruit tree, he realised, and moved along to the next one. There was a discussion going on on the other side of the house, he realised. Casey and Sturges were discussing something in low voices. Sturges sounded dubious. After a moment the conversation came to an end, and then there was quiet. MacCready moved to the next tree.

 

A few long moments later Codsworth hissed past the garden and up to the front of the house, humming to himself. He must’ve run into Casey - no-one else ever got such a warm greeting from the otherwise sniffy robot. Damn thing adored him.

 

“Master Raines, you’ve returned! How delightful. I trust your journey went well?”

 

“Hey Codsworth, have you seen Bobby? I’ve been looking all over for him.”

 

MacCready’s ears pricked up at the sound of his own name, the new one that only Casey used, but didn’t move from where he stood. He’d been looking for him. MacCready’s heart was pounding and his stomach did something strange. It was not unpleasant.

 

“Oh, Mister MacCready, sir? I believe he is tending to the mutfruit trees.”

 

“Thanks, buddy.” A metallic noise; he had patted Codsworth’s shoulder. Or shoulder-equivalent.

 

MacCready bent his head and continued turning over his patch of earth. He didn’t know why he didn’t just go on over; something made him want to pretend he hadn’t heard any of that. His heart thudded in his chest; he’d be amazed if Casey didn’t hear it.

 

“Bobby?” A familiar voice called. MacCready lifted his head and gave what he hoped looked like an easy smirk.

 

“There you are,” he said, turning and leaning on the shovel. “I almost thought you forgot about me.”

 

Casey looked exhausted; wrung out, beaten up, done in. He smiled tiredly while MacCready tried to hide his concern.

 

“It’s good to see you,” said Casey with a genuine, affectionate smile, and MacCready’s heart swelled in his chest.

 

“You too,” he said. It was the understatement of the year. “You look like a Vertibird fell on you.” Casey laughed.

 

“That would probably have been more fun,” he said.

 

“What happened?”

 

Casey squeezed his eyes shut. “Where to begin,” he said. “No, it’s too long. I need a bath and some food, and about a million years sleep. I know I’m already two hundred down, but trust me, that’s not enough.”

 

“Did you get to the Glowing Sea?” MacCready asked, unable to stop himself.

 

“Yeah, and what a shitshow that was. I got what I needed, but fuck _me_ that place is hell on toast. You think radstorms are bad, you ain’t seen shit.” He yawned, and stretched expansively.

 

“Go,” said MacCready. “Go eat, sleep. We’ll talk when you’re rested up, okay?”

 

Casey nodded, rubbing one eye and smiling sleepily, and MacCready’s heart turned over in his chest.

 

“Cool. I just wanted to see you before I crashed. Come find me later,” Casey said as he left.

 

“Sure.” MacCready made up his mind to wait until tomorrow.

 

~*~

 

In the time since Casey had left, MacCready had taken to sleeping in one of the other houses after someone had made a wisecrack about him housesitting for his boyfriend. It wasn’t the boyfriend part that pissed him off, more the implication that he was doing as he was told, good little puppy-dog. MacCready didn’t take orders from anyone (unless they paid him) and it was pathetic, and probably only showed just how pathetic he was, but he couldn’t help it. It sucked, too, because it was harder to find alone time when you shared with a bunch of near-strangers. On the odd occasion he had stolen back to Casey’s just to be alone for a while - and enjoy all the benefits that went with that - but on the whole he joined in on the whole musical beds game.

 

People weren’t precious about where they slept as a rule; no-one had a dedicated bed. If someone was in the one you’d taken last night, you found another.There were two beds in the bedroom in Casey’s house, and MacCready knew Casey would probably be expecting him to fall into the other one when he was done for the day, but MacCready went to one of the others that night. He told himself it was because he wanted Casey to get a good night’s sleep and not be tempted to stay up all night telling MacCready what had been happening to him for the last few months.

 

It wasn’t true. Actually MacCready found himself too shy, too uncertain of the way they’d left things, to assume he’d still be welcome there.

 

When he woke the next day his first thought was Casey; but he got up, ate some of his leftover brahmin steak and went to tend the mutfruit trees. Casey would find him when he was ready.

 

Before midday, there seemed to be a lot of activity going on in the space at the top of the hill. It had once contained another house, but it had been so badly damaged when the bombs fell that when Casey had come back, he and Codsworth had scrapped the thing right down to its foundations. Since then the lot had been vacant, but that was where all the noise seemed to be coming from now - crashing and banging, and Sturges calling instructions over the whole thing in his weird twangy accent.

 

MacCready tried to squint over and see what was going on, but it was too far away and Mama Murphy’s Pink Flamingo Bar and Cafe was in the way. He leaned his shovel up against the nearest tree and pulled off his gloves, wandering around the side of Casey’s house.

 

As he approached the workbench he saw that Trashcan Carla had arrived. She was standing in the middle of the street smoking, just _daring_ anyone to try and buy something from her. He caught her eye and nodded questioningly over at the source of all the hammering; she looked down her nose at him and shrugged.

 

He couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer; this was the most interesting thing that had happened since the raider attacks. He wandered up the hill to see what they were doing.

 

In the middle of the vacant lot stood some kind of weird three legged tower with a platform between its feet, and a small satellite dish on a tripod. Sturges was crouching in front of a large generator off to one side, his back to MacCready. He had a wrench or something in his hand and was busy tightening something inside, biceps bulging under his tanned skin and tight t-shirt. It was hard not to feel jealous of Sturges sometimes, he thought, hugging his own skinny arms around himself. None of the hard, physical work he’d been doing lately seemed to have done much for him in the muscle department.

 

“I know he’s hot but quit staring, it makes him uncomfortable,” said a voice in his ear, making him jump.

 

“What? No, it’s not…” MacCready protested, but gave up with a sigh as Casey laughed. “I guess _you’re_ feeling better today,” he groused.

 

Casey gave him his sunniest grin. “Yup. Fresh as a daisy.”

 

“What’s that thing?” MacCready asked, nodding over at the contraption in the vacant lot. Mostly it was a good excuse to look at something that didn’t make him blush.

 

“That,” said Casey, “Is my teleporter.”

 

MacCready couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Your _what_?” he asked, turning back to Casey, all embarrassment forgotten in a flash.

 

“That’s how I’m getting in to the Institute. The coursers teleport in and out using chips in their heads. Virgil said I can use one to hijack the signal and hack myself in.”

 

“You have got to be shi - kidding me.”

 

“I assure you I am not shi-kidding you.”

 

MacCready shook his head in wonder. “How did you get two courser chips?” he asked, conversationally. Casey looked uncomfortable suddenly.

 

“Well… The thing is, I only have one. I had to kill a courser to get it, and believe me, Kellogg was a breeze by comparison. I only got one ticket, no substitutions, exchanges or refunds. I’m sorry, Bobby, I know you wanted to come with me.”

 

“I told you I was going to help you find Shaun,” said MacCready. “You already went to the Glowing Sea without me.” He couldn’t help feeling hurt, even though it wasn’t Casey’s fault. Casey put his hands on MacCready’s arms; it was the first time he’d touched him since his return.

 

“You _have_ helped me, Bobby. You’ve been a better friend to me than anyone else in this Godforsaken shithole, and with some of the amazing people I’ve met here, that is really saying something. I wish there was a way you could come with me, I really do, but this is something I’m gonna have to do alone.”

 

Suddenly MacCready was angry. “You mean to tell me I’ve been hanging around here for three months, waiting for you to come back so I could help you find Shaun, and this entire time you didn’t need me? I could have been back in the Capital Wasteland by now, with _my_ son. Who, by the way, is expected to make a full recovery, not that you care.” He wrenched himself out of Casey’s grasp and stalked away, furious.

 

He heard Casey call after him, but he ignored it. He went instead to the kitchen of Casey’s house where he’d stashed his pack, and began to sort through his things. He’d need to pack light, it was a long journey. Maybe he’d be able to hitch a ride on a caravan. Even just for some of it would help. He didn’t mind playing caravan guard in exchange for a ride.

 

He heard footsteps approach him slowly from behind; he ignored them.

 

“Bobby…”

 

Would he need extra ammo? He had to make a trip up to Goodneighbor to see Daisy before he left anyway, he could pick some up there if he needed it.

 

“Bobby, please.”

 

What about food? And Rad-X, he should be able to afford a bottle or two.

 

“Bobby, I’m sorry, please talk to me.”

 

MacCready whirled on him. “If you knew you didn’t need my help you could have sent me a message,” he snapped. “Daisy did, to let me know about Duncan. You know, I almost left when I got her letter. But I didn’t because I still owe you.”

 

Casey looked uncomfortable. “I did tell you you didn’t have to stay for me,” he said. It was the wrong thing to say.

 

“And you knew I would stay anyway, you asshole!” MacCready yelled. “I might be in love with you, but that doesn’t mean you get to treat me like shit!”

 

“What did you want me to do, write you a letter that said, ‘hey buddy, just so you know I don’t need you any more so I guess you can go now’?!”

 

“That would have been better than letting me stick around here waiting for you for _three_ _fucking months_!” MacCready knew people were staring, and he had never cared less in his life. He went back to packing his bag, viciously stuffing food and cans of water in.

 

Casey was silent behind him, but he didn’t leave. “Are you really in love with me?” He asked softly, after a moment.

 

“Doesn’t matter now, does it,” MacCready snapped. “If it ever did. Your kid needs you, and mine needs me, so I guess this is where we go our separate ways.” With that he stood and slung the pack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”

 

“Bobby, wait,” Casey called after him.

 

“Good luck with the Institute,” MacCready called back over his shoulder, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! And so I upload the first smut I've written in years. I hope it's not awful :/


	8. Alakazam and Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was walking along, minding my business; what a most disturbing sound. Watch out for flying glass…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the comments and kudos! I’m running out of pre-written chapters to edit so you guys are lighting a fire under me to write more. :) 
> 
> Also, general warning, this chapter includes references to past violence that can be interpreted as sexual assault; it wasn’t written with that in mind and it certainly isn’t explicit (and does not directly involve any of the main characters), but reading it back I realised it could be interpreted that way. It’s about 3/4 of the way through, and is marked out with three bold X’s (xxx) above and below the paragraph so if you don’t want to read it, you can see which part to skip.

He almost felt sorry for the first few things that crossed his path. Almost. Bloatflies weren’t particularly satisfying to kill now that watching them explode in greenish-yellow gunk reminded him of radiation-induced nausea, but the feral ghouls who tried to rear up at him outside Lexington… Boy. That had made him feel a little better, at least. He holed up in a little shack as the twilight drew in, checking it carefully first for radroaches. There was a dirty sleeping bag and it was quiet enough, but he was still too furious to sleep. He tossed and turned angrily for a while, but wound up sitting on the ground outside the shack for most of the night, smoking and being pissed off.

 

He could have had his little boy in his arms by now, he thought. The hell with Casey and his stupid crusades. He could go and get himself killed for all MacCready cared. Who did he think he was, just taking off and leaving MacCready with his thumb up his ass for three months? A little goddamn courtesy never hurt anyone. He had sworn to repay his debt to Casey, not babysit his fucking settlements. Inconsiderate asshole.

 

If he’d been able to sleep, he might have woken up a little less pissed off; as it was, he was probably even more grouchy the next day. It was pointless, he knew, going over and over the same grievances all night just being pissed off about them but he couldn’t help it. He kept thinking of things he wished he’d said, and having imaginary arguments with Casey, throwing in every little thing about the man that annoyed him. He dragged himself up off the grubby mattress just after dawn and continued to grouch his way on up to Goodneighbor.A few more unfortunate ferals and bloodbugs got in his way and paid the price for it; it didn’t help. He finally arrived just after midday; Daisy smiled when she looked up and saw him.

 

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said warmly. “Did you get my note?” He realised dimly that if she hadn’t seemed to notice how pissed off he looked, then it probably meant that he looked like that all the time.

 

He gave her a tired smile. “I did. Thank you, Daisy, I really mean it.”

 

“Oh, any time. I’m just glad your little boy’s doing well. Say, where’s Vault Boy?” She looked over his shoulder as if she expected to see Casey push open the heavy gate and come in behind him; MacCready’s face fell.

 

“Yeah, he and I aren’t… Well, I’m going home, Daze. I really just came up here to say goodbye.”

 

Daisy looked concerned. “What happened?”

 

Where to start. “A lot of things,” said MacCready. “How long you got?”

 

Daisy came around the counter and took him gently by the wrist, showed him to the back and told him to sit on an upturned crate. “I’ll be back in just a minute,” she said, and put the CLOSED sign up on the counter.

 

“Beer?” she offered.

 

Half an hour later MacCready’s flood of fury had dwindled to a trickle. He didn’t feel tired, exactly, more drained. Empty. He heaved a great sigh and rested his chin in his hands, staring dejectedly at the floor.

 

“I get why you’re pissed, I really do,” said Daisy. “And I’m not saying he was right, not at all, but I think maybe you might be overreacting just a little bit.”

 

“Yeah?” MacCready didn’t have the energy to get riled up at this.

 

“A little. He probably didn’t know he couldn’t take you with him until recently. I’m almost certain he would have wanted you to go.”

 

“I’m not pissed that I can’t go, I’m pissed that he left me hanging when there was nothing left that I could do to help,” said MacCready. “If he didn’t need me around he should have said so. I said I’d be with him until he found Shaun, and I meant it.”

 

Daisy sat back on her crate. “Sure doesn’t look to me like you meant it.”

 

“Of course I did,” said MacCready, nettled, “but - ”

 

“Oh, then he must have had the kid with him before you left?”

 

She had him, there. “… No.”

 

“But you told him you’d be there till he found his kid. Didn’t you? And then you stormed off before he could find him?”

 

“… I wouldn’t call it _storming_ , exactly, but I guess technically - ”

 

“Well, then you didn’t really mean it. Listen, kid, it changes nothing that you can’t go into the Institute with him. When you said you’d help him, I hope you meant that you would help in whatever way he needed?”

 

“Of course, but I didn’t think it would be by tending his fuhhhh _aarrghhh_ …” The swear turned into a growl of frustration. He stopped, and took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. “His stupid mutfruit trees.”

 

“Look, I know gardening is boring. And I know you want to be with your son, any father would. And maybe Vault Boy was kind of inconsiderate, but can you really blame him? You’re a father, you know how trying to save your kid can make you forget about other things. You could try being a little more understanding. What would Lucy think, if she could see you going back on your word? Besides, if you leave now, how will you ever know if the four of you could have made a family?”

 

MacCready blinked at this. A family. Could it… Could they? The thought was too big to have all at once. It sure as hell hadn’t been what he’d had in mind when he’d asked Lucy to marry him, but the best laid plans, et cetera et cetera.

 

And what _would_ Lucy think? She’d be pretty mad, if she knew he had abandoned a friend who had helped save Duncan’s life. He could see her now, in his mind, hands on her hips and scowling at him. The thought made him smile, if a little sadly. She wouldn’t want him to give up a chance for Duncan to have a real family, either. He chewed his lip, turning all of this over in his mind. He was in love with Casey, and had told him as much; it hadn’t exactly been romantic, but still. And Casey was into him, even if he wasn’t ready to start something with anyone else yet after his wife. Maybe, in time, they could…

 

Daisy smiled and patted him on the knee, lit two cigarettes, and handed one to MacCready before standing up. “Besides,” she said, “there was nothing stopping you sending for Duncan and bringing him here while you waited for Vault Boy. If you needed someone to watch him I’d have been more than happy. He’d have been safe enough here.” With that, she went back out to open her store.

 

~*~

 

He left Goodneighbor and headed north, intending to go up through Cambridge. Daisy had convinced him, at the very least, to swing by Sanctuary and see what was going on, even if it took him a little out of his way; he wondered what Casey would say when he turned up again, tail between his legs. He’d felt like a real asshole when Daisy had pointed out that he’d broken his promise. What if she was right, what if Casey did need him once he got back from the Institute? This might not be the happy ending just yet; there might be more ass to kick before they found Shaun. If the Wasteland could find another obstacle to put between you and your goal, you could be damn sure it would. And besides, he couldn’t just throw away an opportunity to have a real family; for Duncan’s sake, and for his own too - not to mention Casey and Shaun - he had to find out if there was any way to make that happen.

 

Bunker Hill was just disappearing behind him when he heard voices. Not usually a threatening sound but this was raider territory, and it was starting to get dark. He already had his rifle in his hands - standard practice for the Wastes - and immediately dropped down into a crouch behind a burned out car, looking for the source of the sound. Up ahead among the rubble, there was a tall building with a Gunner barricade outside. _Fuck_. How had he not noticed it? Too busy dreaming, and chastising himself for being an idiot, he realised grimly.

 

He felt in his pocket for the frag grenades he knew were not there; just one well-placed one would have solved his problem. Why hadn’t he bought any? KL-E-0 had been _right there_. He cursed himself for buying Casey a microscope as an apology instead. Three Gunners stood around behind the barricade, smoking and talking. Sneaking past them was not going to happen - the street was too narrow and they would see him in even low light. They would almost definitely hear him. He knew how to be quiet when he needed to, but he hadn’t quite developed Casey’s almost supernatural ability to disappear into thin air; for a big guy Casey was shockingly stealthy. Even MacCready lost sight of him sometimes.

 

He considered his options. He could turn back, but the only other way he knew that would get him out of Cambridge to the north would take him through Supermutant territory, and that was definitely death on a stick. Sneaking was a no-go, so his only other options were distract or direct attack. If he could take one out with a headshot - easy - he would still have two others to deal with, and they would find him pretty quickly unless he could outrun them. If he tried to distract them and it didn’t work, then he’d have all three to deal with up close. Even a successful distraction didn’t look appealing - it would either bring them closer to him or push them further down the street, and he’d still have to get past them somehow. Not to mention that all of these options had thus far discounted the possibility of more Gunners inside the building.

 

He checked to see how many stimpaks he had; four. Well, _fuck_. He lifted his rifle and aimed down the scope. _Take your time, MacCready, relax. Take a breath. They don’t know you’re here, you have time to get the first shot right. Because if you don’t, then this whole plan goes to shit and all three of them murder the fuck out of you._ His trigger finger tightened as the crosshairs rested on the back of the largest Gunner’s head, and the rest of his body relaxed. He breathed out slowly and squeezed.

 

_Crack_ \- and the Gunner’s head exploded like a melon. The other two ducked down, and MacCready heard the clicking of weapons being loaded.

 

“What the fuck?”

 

One of them poked his head over the top of the barricade, and MacCready shot his helmet off. It would have been hilarious if he hadn’t been shitting his pants. A grenade came flying out from behind the barricade - they hadn’t aimed it right at him because they didn’t know exactly where he was, but it was still too close for comfort. He had no choice - he ran out from behind the car and made a break for it.

 

“You little shithead!” The grenade exploded behind him and he felt a rush of hot air propel him forward - at the same time something stung his left leg just above the top of his boot, making him stagger. Gunshots, and something zipped past his head. Running feet behind him - he didn’t dare look back - and gunfire, and something thumped into the back of his right shoulder making him cry out and almost knocking him off his feet. He was limping now with the pain in his leg, and he was pretty sure something was broken in his shoulder too. He tried to run through it but something large and heavy fell into the back of him and knocked him over, winding him and crushing his face into the dirt.

 

Rough hands hauled him onto his back.

 

“You little fuck. I fuckin’ told you it was him,” said the Gunner who’d bodyslammed him into the ground, sitting on top of him so he couldn’t scramble away. MacCready blinked helplessly up into the grinning face, and another one appeared on the edge of his vision. _I shouldn’t have run_. _I should have stayed and fought them_. He tried to go for his pistol, but a boot pinned his hand to the ground and crushed it.

 

“Ow,” he said, trying to sound only mildly inconvenienced. Showing any kind of weakness was a huge mistake with these assholes.

 

“Holy fuckin’ shit. If it isn’t little Arr Jay Fuckin’ MacCready,” said the second one. Matthews, if MacCready remembered right. Real piece of work; as if that were any kind of distinction among the Gunners.

 

“Hey, Jones, Matthews. Long time no see. Hey sorry about Adams, I assume it was his head I just blew off - argh,” he added, as Matthews twisted his boot, grinding MacCready’s hand into the sidewalk.

 

“You little prick,” Jones hissed in his face. “I’m gonna fuckin’ _kill_ you for that.” So his breath hadn’t improved any, then.

 

“I didn’t realise he meant that much to you - oof,” he said as Jones picked him up by his lapels and slammed him into the dirt again; he saw stars.

 

“Sergeant Baker wants to talk to you, after what you pulled at Mass Pike,” Matthews put in, before Jones could punch him again. “You and that Vaultie asshole,” he added. “Where is he, by the way?”

 

“Iunno,” said MacCready. He was fighting to hold on to consciousness, aware that if he lost the fight then these two assholes would ensure he never woke up. He blinked, hard, swallowing his rising nausea. _Keep talking, but stop pissing them off_ , he told himself. _They keep punching you, you’re done_. “Last I heard he was going after the Institute.” It was true, after all. Let them think Casey was throwing himself at a pointlessly impossible task; they didn’t have to know he’d actually found a way in.

 

Jones threw a glance at Matthews over his shoulder. “Is that so?” said Matthews; of the two of them, he was the smarter one. Not that that meant much.

 

“Yeah. Hey, how’d you know it was me?”

 

“What, Mass Pike?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Matthews snorted. “Not hard to figure out, dumbass. Barnes and Winlock warn you to stay out of our territory, you and Vaultie Asshole start fuckin’ up Gunner posts and then Mass Pike goes down? You musta thought we were really fuckin’ stupid, Mac _Bleedy_.” Jones gave a snort of laughter at this hilarious play on words. “You really thought Baker and Clint were gonna take that lying down?”

 

“Why, what are they doing about it?” MacCready asked. It didn’t take a genius to work out what ‘MacBleedy’ meant. His shoulder hurt like a motherfucker, and he could feel something warm and liquid oozing out in all directions under his back.

 

“Well, you can ask ‘em, when we get to Quincy,” said Matthews, with a grin. “You’re wanted, alive at all costs.” Well, there was some good news.

 

~*~

 

They stimpak’ed him, with his own supply, none too gently and barely enough to stop him bleeding out. His duster was ruined; not that it hadn’t been on many other occasions before now. His shoulder throbbed, and his leg too; there was actually a piece of shrapnel stuck in it from the grenade, he’d realised, when they’d hauled him to his feet. He’d tried to reach down and pull it out, but Matthews had stopped him, bent down and ripped it out himself with a laugh. Jones tied him up and gagged him and they helped themselves to all his guns and ammo. He winced as Jones started pawing at his beloved .308 rifle; he had to try hard not to show his dismay in case they broke it just to piss him off.

 

**xxx**

 

There had been more Gunners inside the building, unfortunately. When Jones dragged MacCready in by his collar to tell them what had happened, MacCready really thought he might be about to get the absolute shit beaten out of him. Or worse. There were a lot of ways you could hurt a person that left them alive; his time in the Gunners had shown him most of the ones he knew of. He grit his teeth and kept his chin up - whatever they decided to do, he would take it. To his blessed relief, however, Matthews announced that they had to leave for Quincy right away. Clint and Baker would want to get their hands on him as soon as possible.

 

**xxx**

 

Jones ordered three more Gunners to keep watch outside, and they marched him off, hands tied behind his back. They hung their packs around his neck; MacCready couldn’t help a grimace, but he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of hearing him whine about it. They marched him south for what felt like hours, back past Bunker Hill and over the bridge into South Boston.

 

He had been hoping that they would pass one of the Minutemen settlements or a caravan, and that perhaps he could make a break for it. If he could get Jones and Matthews to chase him into a settlement then the Minutemen would probably assume an attack and fight back, giving him a chance to get away. But it was fully dark by now, and the Commonwealth wasn’t as familiar to him as the Capital Wasteland. As the miles wore on he started to lose hope.

 

A few hours later he realised with a jolt that he knew this place - familiar details leapt out at him in the hazy, pre-dawn light. This was Jamaica Plain; he had been here with Casey when he’d cleared the place of ferals and set up the beacon. He remembered kicking his heels, bored out of his mind while Casey tinkered with all kinds of shit, trying to make a generator out of tin cans. He always got turned around in this area; all the buildings seemed to look the same. He couldn’t see the settlement but he knew it had to be within earshot. Heart lurching and starting to race, he formulated a plan. Jones and Matthews wouldn’t kill him, not if they had orders to deliver him alive. Didn’t mean they wouldn’t kill him by accident, but it was a chance he’d have to take. If they got him to Quincy he was dead either way.

 

Jones and Matthews were walking behind him, so they could keep an eye on him and throw stones and poorly-constructed insults at the back of his head. He counted himself down from three and spun around like he’d heard something behind them, widening his eyes as if staring at a deathclaw. As the idiots turned to look, he broke into a run. The bags around his neck slowed him down and his hands were still tied behind his back, so if he tripped he was finished. Matthews gave a shout and started to chase him.

 

Where was the settlement? Shit, was it this way, or - ? Fuck! He’d gotten turned around again. _Fuck this fucking place and the - the turrets!_ He could hear the things’ engines burbling and pelted towards them, bags swinging into his knees as he ran. He rounded a corner and the settlement came into view - the guy on guard gave a shout and lifted his gun when he saw MacCready lurching toward him, but quickly lowered it when he really registered what he was seeing. His eyes widened. “ _MacCready?!_ ” He said, stunned. “What happened? Where’s General Raines?”

 

“MMMmmmMMM!” said MacCready, through the gag, trying to jerk his head behind him to warn the guard about Jones and Matthews. The guard gave a quick nod and lifted his gun, awaiting MacCready’s pursuers. He gave a shout, and more settlers started to appear, holding guns.

 

Matthews and Jones rounded the corner seconds after MacCready and skidded to a halt when they saw the turrets and the guard post, and half a dozen settlers pointing guns at their faces. The turrets stuttered to life and began to fire, and the settlers followed suit - Jamaica Plain was close enough to the Castle that many of the people here had probably been there that day, and were nurturing a deep hatred for the Gunners. MacCready just got over the boundary line when he tripped, faceplanting into the dirt for the second time that day. 

 

Guns were blazing behind him as Jones and Matthews opened fire and the settlers returned it, and someone grabbed his shoulders and hauled him behind the wall. Hands went to the back of his head and untied the gag, and then his hands.

 

“Oh my God, thank you,” he breathed, and then, “where’s my gun?” He ignored the pain from his raw wrists as he rummaged through the bags. The gunfight was intensifying behind him; they’d been caught unawares, but fighting was something Jones and Matthews did a lot, and they were good at it. Even outnumbered, they were managing to press forward. MacCready grabbed the first gun that came to hand - a laser rifle, one of Jones’ - and put his head up over the wall.

 

His first shot hit Matthews in the face - _good_ , he thought, savagely. _Motherfucker_. It gave the settlers a chance to turn the tide, and they took it, fighting fiercely. It quickly became clear that the Gunners didn’t stand a chance now that MacCready had a gun in his hand as well, however - Matthews fell first, and when Jones saw that he gave a furious yell and started firing blindly. MacCready put a laser blast in his chest, and one of the settlers got him in the neck with a ten mil. It was enough; Jones dropped his gun and fell to his knees, scrabbling at his throat as the blood poured from his jugular. When Jones’ eyes went glassy and he fell on his face MacCready dropped the rifle, letting himself fall backwards so he was lying in the dirt staring up at the sky, thanking his lucky stars.

 

“You okay?” Asked the guard who’d recognised him, appearing at the edge of his vision. “You look pretty banged up.” MacCready squinted up at him, and realised it was the man he’d spoken to as they buried Pepper, after the battle at the Castle.

 

He offered him a tired smile. “I’m fine now,” he said. “Thanks to you guys.”

 

The man grinned. “Least we could do, after the Castle,” he said, and held out his hand to help MacCready to his feet. “Reckon you saved a lotta lives that day. And didn’t you help the General rescue Joey McIntyre’s wife when she got kidnapped?”

 

MacCready had no idea; it was entirely possible. He’d been on more than one rescue mission with Casey. “Yeah, I think so,” he said. The settler grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

 

“Come on, let’s patch you up. How in the hell did you get yourself into _that_?”

 

~*~

 

If he’d had a choice before, he certainly didn’t now; he _had_ to go back to Sanctuary to warn Casey that the Gunners were after them, if nothing else. With no witnesses Clint and Baker wouldn’t know for sure what had happened, but Jones and Matthews had radioed ahead to Quincy before they left. When they didn’t arrive it would be pretty obvious that they were dead and MacCready had escaped. Again. He had probably pissed Baker and Clint off to the point where they wouldn’t stop now until he was dead, but there was nothing he could do about that for the moment.

 

Still, he had all his shit back, including that stupid fucking microscope, and all of Jones’ and Matthews’ guns and ammo as well. He couldn’t carry all of it, so he gave a bunch of it to the settlers who’d rescued him - it was the least he could do. At least the Gunners tended to have better shit than raiders.

 

They gave him a bed and some food and patched him up and he accepted all of it gratefully, resolving to stop being such a little bitch about all things Minuteman. So they liked irritating violin music; so what? He would take it, and be glad that he was alive to be annoyed by it. He also made up his mind to tell Casey to build them some more turrets, and maybe a fence; Jamaica Plain was one of the closest settlements to Quincy, and would likely get hit pretty hard if Baker and Clint decided that this was the last straw.

 

With food for his journey and some spare grenades and Stimpaks pressed into his hands, he left the next day and headed north again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geography what? Shhhhhh.   
> (When MacCready was planning his initial attack on the Gunners in this chapter, I kept wanting to write in how he saved his game first. It pained me a little to have to exclude it.)


	9. Bakin' It, Makin' It Shake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whole lotta kickin’ in the barn; door and the floor and the gate, cake and pie on the plate. Come on over, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhh my god you guys. Thank you all for reading and comments and kudos! Poor MacCready. All his suffering will have been worth it, I promise. :)

The sun was setting as he crossed the bridge into Sanctuary; against the orange and purple sky he could see white light crackling up ahead at the top of the hill. It had to be the teleporter. Had they got it working? Had he missed Casey? He broke into a run. When he crested the hill his eyes went straight to the teleporter platform - Casey was not there. He scanned all the people standing around as he jogged up to them. He couldn’t see Casey among them, but his gaze lighted on Sturges, fists on his hips, staring at the platform with a frown.

 

“Did I miss him?” MacCready asked, as he approached. Sturges turned, saw who it was, and lifted his chin in greeting. Then he registered the bloodstain on the arm of MacCready’s duster where Matthews had shot him.

 

“Hell happened to you?” He asked, plucking at MacCready’s sleeve.

 

“Gunners,” said MacCready with a dismissive wave. “Where’s Casey?”

 

“Zapped outta here, oh, ‘bout an hour ago. He said if you showed up again to tell you he’s sorry, and that he knows he has no right to ask, but would you please wait until he gets back. Said he had something important to say to you.” He gave a little cough and shuffled his feet after delivering all of this. The careful way he said it made MacCready think he’d probably been made to practice it until he got it right.

 

MacCready nodded. “Thanks.” It embarrassed him a little, that Sturges knew as much as he did. Still, he supposed everyone in Sanctuary knew there must be something going on, after his little outburst a few days ago. He ducked his head, hiding his face under the brim of his hat, and made his way back down the hill toward Casey’s house. He didn’t feel like fighting for a bed tonight, and he figured Casey wouldn’t mind.

 

He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep right away but he didn’t think he could face the others at Mama Murphy’s. He could already imagine the mixed judgement and pity on their faces after his little tantrum, and he didn’t need to see it for real. Instead, he used the time to try and get at least some of the blood out of his coat. It was after midnight when he finally turned in, duster hung up to dry by the Power Armor station. He’d washed it two or three times, until he realised he was putting off sleeping, hoping that Casey would show up again. As nervous as he was about Casey’s return, he couldn’t help but worry about him. What would the Institute do to him? Would they just keep him there, as they had Shaun? What if -

 

 _What if they replace him_ , MacCready thought. Sweat prickled over his skin in a wave as the awful realisation swept through him. _What if it’s not Casey who comes back out of there?_

 

It was a long time before he could sleep, now that this thought had occurred to him. There was nothing he could do about it; it was too late, Casey had gone to the Institute now. MacCready would just have to deal with whoever or whatever returned from it, if and when he returned at all. He resolved to keep an eye on Casey, and maybe ask Piper about it, see if she knew much about the warning signs. She seemed to know a lot about synths. When he did finally sleep, he dreamed of Lucy, leading a pack of feral synth-ghouls slowly down a dimly lit corridor toward him. Their faces looked like Nick’s - smooth plastic, with dead yellow eyes. Their mouths hung open as they stared at him, unblinking. When they had backed him down to a dead end, Lucy reached out and touched his arm - and at that second, a great crack and flash of light jolted him awake. For a moment he thought it must be a storm, until it filtered through to his brain that the crack hadn’t sounded like regular thunder - or even like radstorm thunder. He leapt out of bed and grabbed his hat, jamming it on his head as he ran outside. 

 

“Casey?” he called.

 

He peered through the gloom; a light rain had begun at some point after he’d gone to bed. It pattered gently on his shoulders and hat.

 

A single figure stood in the street up ahead, not far from the platform, unmoving. A familiar green glow emitted from its left arm.

 

“Casey?” he asked again. The figure didn’t move. MacCready approached cautiously closer, until he could see Casey’s features, lit by the electronic green of the Pip-Boy. It made his skin look like plastic; MacCready’s heart jolted in his chest. “Casey, what happened? Are you okay?”

 

Finally Casey looked at him. MacCready had seen that kind of shocked look before, on the faces of brand-new arrivals to Little Lamplight. That complete and utter inability to even begin to comprehend that the loss they had suffered was real, and final, and that life was never, ever going to be the same again. MacCready’s heart sank through the floor.

 

“He’s gone,” Casey whispered. “Shaun’s gone.”

 

~*~

 

He hadn’t meant dead, but when he was finally able to explain, he might as well have. Instead of ten years since Kellogg had stolen Shaun and murdered Gwen, it turned out that it had been _sixty_. With no way to tell how much time had passed while he was frozen, Casey had had no idea that his son had grown up, aged past him, and become an old man.

 

Worse, the old man Shaun had become seemed not to think of his mother’s death and his father’s missing out on his entire life to be such a terrible tragedy. He had spoken of his mother’s murder as ‘collateral damage’, Casey had said, in such a tone that MacCready knew that was the exact phrase that Shaun had used.

 

“And now, he’s running the Institute,” Casey said now. MacCready had led him, unprotesting, back to the house out of the rain, and helped him towel off. It hadn’t seemed the time to talk about the Gunners. That could wait. They sat now on either side of the kitchen table, MacCready with a beer and Casey with a Nuka-Cola. “You know all those synths everyone’s so afraid of? The ones who look human? Guess where the DNA for that came from,” he finished bitterly. “Just guess.”

 

“Jesus, Casey. I’m so sorry,” said MacCready. He’d said that three times already, but he had no idea what else to say. What was there to say to someone who’d been trying for months to find his ten year old son, but had now found a sixty year old monster in his place?

 

If the Institute _had_ replaced Casey with a synth, it seemed to make little sense to have it come back with this story. Easier to send it back with a synth version of Shaun, make everyone think Casey had found his son at last. No, MacCready thought it was more likely that this really was Casey, and that his story was true. Even so, he couldn’t help that niggling little doubt in the back of his mind; but that was the power of the Institute, wasn’t it? Make people distrust everyone, even those they loved, were closest to? He tried to put the thought away, though he knew it would not rest easily.

 

“He knew where I was the whole time,” Casey continued. “The whole fucking time. He could have sent people in to get me, but he didn’t. They sent Kellogg in to get him, so I know for a fact that he could have sent someone in to get _me_.

 

“No, instead he decided to let me unfreeze, like, you know, fucking _whenever,_ if I didn’t fucking die first I guess, and fight my way to him.”

 

He’d gone from shock to despair to misery, and seemed now to be plunging headlong into rage. MacCready didn’t know what to do; he couldn’t even offer him a drink. Instead he lit two cigarettes and offered Casey one. Casey waved it away, so he stubbed it out carefully in the ashtray and left it; he could have it later.

 

“It sounds like they brainwashed him,” said MacCready, after watching Casey pull apart a dirty napkin he’d found on the floor. “No way does a normal person just let their one surviving parent sit in a freezer their whole life. Whoever brought him up is the one to blame for this, not Shaun.”

 

Casey rounded on him, brown eyes hurt, angry, betrayed. “It’s Shaun’s responsibility to _think_! To be compassionate! To smell the bullshit they’ve been feeding him and to reject it! He’s an adult, older than me now! He should be able to fucking think for himself!”

 

“That might not be as easy as it sounds, if it’s all he ever knew,” MacCready pointed out reasonably.

 

“My son, my beautiful baby boy, grew up to be a tyrant,” Casey said, miserably. MacCready wasn’t sure Casey had heard him. “He creates slaves, his organisation kidnaps people and replaces them with those slaves, and he sees nothing wrong in any of that. He thinks he’s doing it for the ‘greater good’, whatever the fuck _that_ means.

 

“When I say that I’ve lost him, that he’s gone, I don’t just mean that I missed out on his childhood. Hell, his whole _life_. I mean that the person that he could have been, if Gwen and I had been able to bring him up ourselves in peace, like we were supposed to, can now never exist.

 

“I don’t know who that man is, but he has never been my son. My son died the day he was kidnapped.”

 

He spoke the words quietly, looking out of the window at the murky dawn. Suddenly his face crumpled and he began to cry. MacCready hesitated, but he knew he couldn’t _not_ go to him. His heart broke for Casey; he couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if this were happening to himself and Duncan. The thought was too horrible to let it form completely. He shook himself and stood up, going around the table to touch Casey’s shoulder, testing to make sure it was okay. Casey didn’t move away, so he took that as consent and gently put his arms around him. After a moment Casey put his arms around MacCready’s waist and pulled him in tight.

 

~*~

 

Casey didn’t ask and neither did MacCready; they just came to the unspoken agreement that they were travelling together again. MacCready hadn’t realised how much he’d missed having company. He’d missed Casey, sure, but he’d missed having someone he trusted to talk to as well.

 

MacCready told him about what had happened with the Gunners, which had only compounded Casey’s misery, but he couldn’t not tell him.

 

“Bobby, this is all my fault. I’m so sorry,” he said. “We should’ve taken them out right after the attack on the Castle.” MacCready waved this away.

 

“It was as much my fault as yours,” he said. “Just know that the Gunners knew about Mass Pike, and that they’re almost definitely out for blood now. I’ve gotten away from them twice, and between us we’ve killed a whole bunch of their men. Baker and Clint aren’t just gonna let that lie.”

 

Casey decided to radio the Castle so that they could get the word out in the area, and the other settlements would send word if they saw or heard anything suspicious, but that was his only concession. They would have to do more than that, MacCready knew, if they wanted to bring the fight to the Gunners before the Gunners brought it to them. But Casey had been through a lot, and MacCready couldn’t bring himself to force it on him; he needed a break. The Gunners would have to wait. Besides, how much could they really do, without leading an army of Minutemen down to Quincy? It made the back of MacCready’s neck itch, doing nothing but sitting and waiting to be attacked, but Casey seemed to have run out of fucks to give.

 

What he decided to do instead was go around to the settlements that were in need of repair or better defences, fixing things up and using some of the crap he’d hoarded to make new beds and water pumps. He also wanted to start setting up stores in each of the settlements. Mama Murphy’s Pink Flamingo Cafe was a start, but it would take much more than that to build up any significant economic power - a large investment of caps, for one thing. If he could fortify the settlements as he got the trading stands running, so much the better. For the time being he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with Shaun or the Institute or any of it; he wouldn’t be able to ignore it forever, but for now he seemed happy to let it twist in the wind. To MacCready, between the Institute and the Gunners, it felt a bit like waiting to see if you were going to be eaten by a deathclaw or a yao guai.

 

“Look, I understand if you want to go home to your son,” Casey said again as they bedded down for the night at Abernathy Farm. Supermutants had stormed through the place while Casey had been at the Institute; there was a lot to fix and it would take a few days to get it done.

 

MacCready shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m here with you for now. Duncan will understand. I made a promise to you, and I have to set him a good example, right? Besides, I’m not about to pick a fight with the Gunners and then leave you to fight it. You’re my friend, I’m staying right here until this is done. Institute _and_ the Gunners.”

 

Casey sighed. “You’re too good to me,” he said. “I don’t deserve you.”

 

“Don’t be dumb. I keep telling you, you’ve saved both mine and my kid’s life. I can stay with you for a while if you need me.”

 

Casey looked up at him at this, chewing his lip. He looked - not nervous, exactly, but… uncertain. Not even that; he looked more as though he were considering a risky idea.

 

“What?” Asked MacCready, remembering what Sturges had told him. He hadn’t wanted to ask about it so far, with everything else that had happened.

 

Casey opened his mouth, but then smiled, and shut it again. “Nothing.”

 

An awful thought had the hair on the back of MacCready’s neck prickling. “You don’t want me to _go_ , do you?”

 

“No, nothing like that. Quite the opposite. It’s fine, don’t worry.”

 

It took everything MacCready had not to demand that Casey tell him what he’d been about to say, but he made himself keep quiet. Casey would tell him when he was ready. Instead he busied himself taking off his boots and getting ready for bed.

 

~*~

 

The next day was pretty back-breaking; MacCready didn’t think he’d ever had as many splinters in his hands over the whole of the rest of his life put together. Connie and Blake Abernathy had put together a good meal for their workers at the end of the day; an amazing Brahmin and vegetable stew, with fresh razorgrain bread that Blake had made that morning. Casey and MacCready, and the other settlers who’d moved in since the radio tower went up, all fell on the food with exhausted relief. Connie had to put on her most frightening scowl to make them all go back and wash their hands first.

 

They didn’t have a table large enough for everyone so most people sat outside, on benches or on the ground, as the sun began to set. MacCready shifted his grip on his spoon a few times to find a comfortable position around all his blisters and splinters. With all the new settlers it was becoming necessary to build a new hut to house everyone, but the Abernathys didn’t have much in the way of equipment. MacCready had been using a crappy old shovel, helping Lucy Abernathy and a group of other settlers to dig the foundations. If they didn’t finish soon, MacCready thought, there would be more of the shovel’s handle under his skin than there would be left in the shovel. Finally he gave up and put the spoon in his other hand; it wasn’t much of an improvement.

 

“I should make some picnic tables,” Casey mused, through a mouthful of stew.

 

“Yeah, and a bar, too.”

 

“Good thinking. Maybe I’ll make that my first store.”

 

After they’d eaten someone put on the radio; Connie put the outside lights on and it turned into a small, impromptu party. Nothing crazy, they were all too exhausted for that; just a few beers and a couple of people kicking off their shoes and dancing some of the tiredness away. Casey grabbed MacCready’s hand - gently, fortunately - and led him into the Abernathys’ house, up the stairs and out onto the roof.

 

“We should keep watch for a while, let them relax,” he explained as he sat in one of the chairs. MacCready didn’t mind. He wasn’t much of a dancer, and realising he was being led in the opposite direction had come as something of a relief.

 

“Sure,” he said. He dragged another chair over next to Casey’s and sat down. His hands were still sore; he leaned back and held his hands up under the light from above and behind him, and tried to see if he could push out some of the splinters. The music from the radio drifted up from below, but otherwise the Commonwealth was quiet.

 

Casey was smoking; he leaned back to offer MacCready one, saw what he was doing and frowned.

 

“What’s up?”

 

“Splinters,” said MacCready, without looking up. “That stupid shovel.”

 

Casey balanced his cigarette in the ashtray. Without speaking, he took MacCready’s hands in his own and turned them over, palms up, bringing them up close to his face to look at them.

 

“Hmm,” he said. “Yeah, looks sore. You got some nice juicy ones in there.” His words brushed MacCready’s hands as he spoke them, and he had to suppress a shiver.

 

 _Here we go, again_. He braced himself for another round of directionless flirting, set to end in nothing but frustration.

 

Casey let go of his hands, and then leaned toward him. For a second MacCready wondered what the hell he was doing, but then Casey took hold of the seat of his chair and dragged it closer to his own, with MacCready still in it. MacCready blinked. Casey then took out a roll of duct tape, and began picking at the end to lift it up.

 

“What are you doing?” MacCready asked in spite of himself.

 

“Tape removal method,” Casey said without looking up. “Gets most of the little ones, and you can get the rest with a sewing needle.” He pulled off a strip of tape and began ripping it into thinner strips, and stuck them to the side of the railing so they wouldn’t stick together before he could use them. He twisted in his chair, lifting up one knee and resting it on the back, so that he could face MacCready, and took one of his hands.

 

Suddenly he smiled. “You have little hands,” he said, with a quick grin. MacCready flushed.

 

“Shut up,” he retorted defensively, out of reflex.

 

“No, they’re nice hands. They’re small, but they’re strong. Like the rest of you.” He flicked him a quick, cheeky grin, and MacCready’s heart flipped over.

 

He drew a shaky breath, sorry that he’d snapped. “Thanks?” he said, with the ghost of a laugh. Truly, he didn’t know where this was going, if that was a genuine compliment or if Casey was just messing with him again. With Casey it could be either. MacCready didn’t know how much more of this he could stand. It didn’t help that having Casey hold his hands, touching him with such gentleness and care, was seriously beginning to turn him on in spite of the pain. He tried to twist surreptitiously in his chair, pressing his legs together.

 

Casey gently pressed a strip of tape along the length of MacCready’s index finger, and then peeled it back from his palm to the tip. He held the tape up to the light and squinted at it.

 

“Yup, got a couple,” he said, and held the tape so MacCready could see it.

 

MacCready nodded. “Good job, Doctor Raines.”

 

Casey grinned. “I’m not done yet,” he warned. Somehow, MacCready didn’t mind.

 

The needle part was not as pleasant; one particularly large splinter in the heel of his hand had MacCready squirming in his seat a little. He didn’t mind physical pain, but it had been going on all day now, and digging around inside the same area over and over again was becoming pretty excruciating.

 

“You want to take a break?” Casey asked, after about ten minutes of picking at it. MacCready nodded, and Casey released his hand.

 

“Stupid splinters,” MacCready grumbled. “How does something so small hurt so much?”

 

“Like stepping on a Lego,” said Casey, smiling.

 

“What’s a Lego?”

 

“… Never mind. Old world thing.”

 

MacCready’s hands smarted. It was good to have the splinters gone - most of them, anyway - but it was more painful now than it had been an hour ago, in spite of how gentle Casey had been.

 

“You could probably have been a doctor, you know,” he said, peering at his hands.

 

Casey smiled. “Nah, I’m not smart enough for that. That’s why I ended up in the Army.”

 

“Well, you have a great bedside manner,” MacCready observed. It was true; Casey had been very considerate, taken great pains to be gentle.

 

“With you, maybe. I don’t have patience with most people.”

 

MacCready smiled at him. “I’m different?” he asked.

 

“You know you are.”

 

MacCready could stand it no longer. “Casey,” he began; but it seemed as though Casey already knew what he was going to say. He held up a hand.

 

“I know, I know, I’m flirting again,” he said. “It’s really hard not to, with you. But I was hoping maybe we could start over.”

 

MacCready took adeep breath and blew it all out at once, looking askance at Casey. Much as he would love to believe this, it just wasn’t that simple. “Look, I know that thinking about Gwen is hard. I get it. And now Shaun… But I don’t want to just be your escape from that.”

 

“You’re more than that to me. You have to know that by now. I’m just… I’m tired of watching everyone I love slip through my fingers,” said Casey, taking Bobby’s hands gently in his own again. “Life is short, Bobby. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

 

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” said MacCready softly. “But you can’t just decide that you’re done grieving now. It has to happen in its own time.”

 

“Honestly, I’m okay,” said Casey. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but I am. Everyone grieves differently. I’m not saying I don’t still miss her; I do. I know you still miss Lucy too though, so you know how that feels.”

 

He did. He nodded, slowly, rubbing the tips of his sore fingers. “Okay. So, let’s say you really are ready to move on. What happens now?”

 

Casey grinned. “Well, I mean there isn’t exactly a script,” he said. “And it depends on what you want, too. I really mean it, if you want to go back to DC, I understand.”

 

MacCready sighed. “I do,” he said honestly. “But I won’t. Not yet.” He took a breath, and gave Casey a serious look. “Okay, I’m gonna put my cards on the table. I like you. You know that. And I want to see what there is between us, find out what we could make of it. But I’ll be honest with you - it scares me.

 

“It scares me because I’ve never had feelings like this for a guy before, so I don’t have any idea how that whole thing works. And it scares me because… I don’t want to give my heart away to someone, and then have to watch them die. I can’t go through that again, Casey, I just can’t.” He sat back to await the reaction to all of this, heart in his throat.

 

Casey was quiet a moment, digesting MacCready’s words. Finally he nodded. “I get it,” he said. “I’m sure you know that losing someone else scares the piss out of me, too. This world is dangerous, way more dangerous than the one Gwen and I left behind. We should have been safe, underground, but this world managed to find us and take her and Shaun away from me anyway. And if it can do that…” He stopped, and shook his head. “Losing people is just a risk everyone takes. There’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do to avoid it. And it shouldn’t make you so afraid of being alone that you push everyone away.”

 

MacCready nodded. “I know. I know it’s unavoidable. And I wouldn’t take back the time I spent with Lucy, even if it meant knowing I’d lose her. But that doesn’t mean that the thought of losing you too doesn’t scare the crap out of me.”

 

Casey smiled sadly. “I’d rather live with loss, than regret. Listen, I can’t promise I won’t die, but I will promise I’ll try really hard not to. If you’ll do the same.”

 

MacCready smiled. “Of course.”

 

“As for the other thing… Not that I’m an expert, but I’ve dated guys before. It’s really not as different as you’d think,” said Casey.

 

“Yeah?” MacCready asked. He was surprised at this information about Casey’s past, though he wasn’t sure why. He wondered why it had never occurred to him that Casey might have dated other men; he was older than MacCready - even discounting the two hundred years underground - and he had said that he and Gwen hadn’t been married that long. Why shouldn’t he have dated other people before her, men _and_ women? If he flirted with MacCready, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine there had been other men before him. And now that MacCready thought about it, why would dating men be so different from dating women? It was all just _people_.

 

“Yeah,” said Casey. “The mundane, everyday parts are the same. You hang out, eat dinner together, cuddle, have sex, fight sometimes. Hopefully not too often. Men and women aren’t different species, you know.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I just… I didn’t really know it was a thing. Well, I did, but I just didn’t know it was a thing I might want to do.”

 

Casey smiled at this admission. “But you do want to?” He asked, voice lowered just a touch.

 

“With you? Yes.”

 

Casey reached out a hand to touch the side of MacCready’s face, brown gaze clear. Heart in his mouth, MacCready bit his lip. 

 

“Then let’s do it,” said Casey, and kissed him. MacCready froze for a moment, forgetting what you were supposed to do, but once the soft, warm pleasure of Casey’s tongue in his mouth had numbed his brain, his body took over for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the Big Damn Kiss!!!! Nine chapters in, well done if you're still here. Further smut in the 'coming' chapters (hur hur)


	10. Bring My Rockin' Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, meet me in a hurry, behind the barn; I heard the news, there’s good rockin’ tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not even gonna pretend there’s any more than a sorry excuse for plot in this chapter. It's quite a long one but I hope it's worth it. Happy Pride Month!

They arrived at the Starlight just in time for a band of raiders to descend upon the settlement; Casey and MacCready dropped their packs on the ground and drew out their guns. MacCready could already hear the pop-pop of pipe pistols, and the electronic stutter of the turrets as they approached. The raiders were coming in from up the hill; this brought them in on the side where the scrubby little garden had been started. They would crush it if the Minutemen didn’t get there first. Was this the Gunners, or just a regular raid?

 

MacCready went to one knee to cover Casey as the other charged forward with his .44 - both were aiming for heads. One of the raiders shot a settler; he dropped his gun with a cry and fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder. MacCready took a chunk out of the raider’s neck and moved on to the next one.

 

The fight was short but pretty brutal, and reminded MacCready suspiciously of the attack on Sanctuary. He’d told Casey about that, and about his suspicions that the Gunners might be hiring raiders to bulk up their numbers. Knowing that the Gunners were low on cannon fodder after the Castle and that MacCready had managed to poke them in the eye again, Casey took this threat seriously.

 

Casey shot the last visible raider in the face and continued on up the hill, disappearing over the crest - checking for stragglers, he was nothing if not thorough. MacCready followed, clicking his tongue in irritation. He hated losing sight of him. He jogged as quickly and quietly as he could to the top of the hill, reloading as he went, just in time to see Casey struggling hand to hand with a raider - the asshole had a knife in his hand and a sack hood over his head,MacCready dropped to one knee again and took aim, but he couldn’t get a clear shot - not without risking hitting Casey.

 

“Fuhhhhhh… dge,” he said, under his breath. He hated getting close. He stowed his rifle and grabbed a ten mil pipe pistol - why was it always goddamn pipe pistols? - out of the limp grip of a dead raider and ran toward the struggling pair. The raider hadn’t seen him approach, too intent on his struggle with Casey. MacCready darted in, put the barrel to the raider’s temple and pulled the trigger.

 

It clicked but didn’t fire - _fucking pipe weapons!_ \- the raider kicked out behind him and caught MacCready in the knee with a crunch, and a burst of pain exploded in his kneecap. He went down with a cry, clutching his leg, but the distraction had been enough give Casey the upper hand. Casey managed to twist around and grasp the back of the sack hood in his fist, pulling it tight around the raider’s neck. He wrenched the raider viciously to one side, pulling him off balance, and tripped him. Even through the haze of agony from his leg, MacCready felt the bile rise in his throat as he heard he raider’s neck snap.

 

Casey dropped the limp body and wiped blood away from his mouth, turning back to MacCready. “You okay?”

 

The pain in MacCready’s knee was incredible. He hadn’t been able to move since the raider kicked him without sending bolts of agony up to his hip and down to his toes. Even breathing was torture. “Stimpak?” He managed, through clenched teeth. Casey’s eyes widened - he clearly hadn’t realised how badly MacCready was hurt. He patted his pockets frantically.

 

“Fuck. Hold on,” he said, and shot off back toward Starlight where their packs were. MacCready counted his breaths, trying to distract himself from the pain.

 

“One, Mississippi, two Mississippi, thr… three Mississippi…” It must have been ten years, maybe twenty until Casey returned at a run, flipping the cap off the Stimpak needle and falling to his knees next to MacCready.

 

He stuck the needle in as gently as he could, clearly not wanting to cause any further pain, and the relief was instant. MacCready flopped bonelessly back on the ground. He hadn’t realised how tightly he’d been holding all his muscles until he could finally relax them. He drew a deep breath and blew it out, closing his eyes. A hand touched his arm, carefully.

 

“You okay?” Casey asked again, softly. MacCready cut his eyes over at him; he looked worried. There was a film of blood on his teeth; the raider must have caught him in the mouth with an elbow or something. His lip was split, but he didn’t seem to have noticed it yet.

 

“Yeah,” he said shakily. “Thanks.” The kneecap ached as the Stimpak knit it back together, but it was a welcome relief after the agony of having it shattered.

 

“What were you thinking, rushing in like that with no bullets in your gun?” Casey chided him. 

 

“Couldn’t get a clear shot from a distance,” MacCready admitted. “And it had bullets, I checked. It jammed, because it’s a piece of shit pipe pistol, I took it off one of those dead jackasses back there.” He lifted a hand and waved it back in the direction they’d come. For once he didn’t censor himself; he was too wrung out. If Casey even noticed, he said nothing about it.

 

He took the injured leg carefully between his hands and began to bend it manually at the knee, taking care to support the weight of it himself. “How does that feel?”

 

Little flecks of pain still glittered along the knee’s range of motion, but it was nothing to the way it had felt before. “Much better, thanks.” He smiled, watching Casey frown at his knee, bending it gently back and forth.

 

“You want another Stimpak? I got a few,” said Casey, looking up and noticing MacCready’s smile. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” said MacCready. “I’m good.”

 

~*~

 

Of the two of them, MacCready seemed to be the one more worried that the Gunners were about to start a war with the Minutemen, which he thought was a little concerning since Casey was supposed to be their General. He was certain Preston was taking it more seriously than Casey was. It had been his idea to radio the Castle to have them keep an eye out, and set about fortifying the settlements in the area. Casey’s laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing was getting harder for MacCready to bite his tongue about with every day that passed. He knew Baker and Clint would be planning retaliation, if they weren’t already on their way to deliver it, and sitting here waiting to be attacked made his teeth itch.

 

They sat in a couple of lawn chairs on the edge of the light from the diner, MacCready with a Gwinnett and Casey with a Nuka Cola, while the settlers celebrated their victory over the raiding party. Casey was gingerly thumbing his split lip, while MacCready peered out into the dusk as if he thought the whole Gunner army was about to descend on them. For all he knew, it was.

 

“Bobby, stop worrying,” said Casey suddenly, leaning forward to touch MacCready’s knee, the one that had been broken a few hours ago, brushing his thumb gently over the kneecap. The sun had sunk below the horizon and the settlers were winding down, eating, drinking beer, dancing in the growing twilight. Someone had patched up the settler who’d been shot; he sat on a bench with his arm in a sling and a beer in his other hand, looking pale but grinning and laughing with the rest. “It’ll be fine. If the Gunners try anything they’re completely outmatched. More and more people are arriving at the settlements and joining up with the Minutemen every day. The Gunners’re just glorified raiders, they’re not fucking magical.”

 

“I know,” Bobby started, and between the beer and Casey’s hand on his knee, he was beginning to forget what it was he’d been worrying about. The song on the radio finished and Travis introduced One More Tomorrow; Casey’s smile was slow and warm, split lip and all, and he took Bobby’s hand and drew him to his feet.

 

“Let’s dance,” he said, into MacCready’s ear, and slipped an arm around his waist. MacCready looked over his shoulder at the little knot of settlers, gathered around the diner. They all seemed too interested in their own food, beer and dancing to have noticed, but it raised his heart rate a little anyway.

 

“They’ll see,” he protested, but Casey was already swaying him in time with the music, one hand at his waist and sliding around to the small of his back, and the other holding Bobby’s hand aloft.

 

“So?” Casey kissed him on the cheek, then on the corner of his mouth, then on his lips; all thoughts of the other settlers fled and MacCready kissed him back, rested his hand at Casey’s waist. He smiled into Casey’s mouth when the other plucked off his hat, and plopped it cheekily on his own head.

 

“Does it suit me?” Casey asked, pulling back just far enough to ask the question, and certainly not far enough for MacCready to see what it looked like on Casey’s head. Casey kissed him again, and he nodded.

 

“Like it’s made for you,” he said between kisses. _I think maybe I’m made for you, too_.

 

Some of the other settlers finally started to notice the pair, dancing off to one side all by themselves, and one or two giggled. Bobby distinctly heard someone say, “Awwww.” A few others began to pair off and start slow dancing as well. It was that kind of night. Bobby hid his blush in Casey’s shoulder and let Casey lead him around, feeling his quiet laughter rumble in his chest.

 

They’d been through Abernathy Farm, Red Rocket, Tenpines and Zimonja so far, building shacks and turrets and trading stands, and it had barely been a week and a half since the kiss on the Abernathys’ roof. They _had_ decided to take things slowly, but MacCready could already feel anticipation steadily overtaking any reticence he still felt. They had had almost no time alone together so far though, considering that the only sleeping space in any of the settlements they’d been to since Sanctuary was cramped and full of other people. Aside from his Sanctuary house and the General’s quarters at the Castle, Casey jostled for beds like anyone else; but here the settlers had built smallish prefabricated units. Each was just large enough for two beds and an oil lamp, and walled off from the others and the outside world; that was the advantage of having so much space here - they could afford to use some of it to give people a little privacy for once. If some of the settlers gave Casey and MacCready knowing smiles as they retired, MacCready was keyed up enough by now that he could almost pretend he hadn’t noticed. Almost.

 

Casey pushed the door shut behind them with his foot and drew Bobby into his arms, pressing his smile to his lips. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “They think it’s cute.”

 

“I don’t care what they think,” said Bobby, a little hotly, even as he knew he was proving himself wrong. Casey pulled him tighter and kissed his cheek.

 

“Of course you don’t,” he said. Suddenly Casey bent and wrapped his arms were around Bobby’s hips - Bobby gasped as Casey lifted him up and gripped Casey’s shoulders to keep himself from toppling out of his arms. “You’re so little,” said Casey, looking up at him. He was still wearing Bobby’s hat. “How does the recoil not knock you off your feet?”

 

MacCready wanted to be mad, but it was impossible under Casey’s clear, brown gaze. He was looking at Bobby with such wonder, like he couldn’t believe he actually had him in his arms; it had been a long time since anyone had looked at him like that. “Shut up,” MacCready said feebly, smiling in spite of himself. “Not my fault you’re a behemoth. Put me down, you butthead.” Casey grinned and kissed him again, and slowly bent his knees, letting MacCready slide gradually through his arms. Once he stood on the floor again Casey stepped away from him momentarily, but caught at his hands and held them, with a suddenly serious expression.

 

“Listen, just because we finally have some privacy doesn’t mean we have to do anything but sleep,” he said. “I meant what I said, we can take things as slowly as you want to.” It was sweet of him, but in spite of his hesitation at the idea of dancing, MacCready had been finding it increasingly difficult to keep his hands to himself. The late summer had blessed the Commonwealth with more than a few sultry days since they’d left Sanctuary, and the sight of Casey digging shack foundations in a sweaty, dirty t shirt had MacCready having to turn away and take a few deep breaths.

 

“Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting nearly two weeks to have you to myself and you wanna - ” Casey gave a grin and cut him off with a kiss that tasted of Nuka Cola and cigarettes and picked him up again, more slowly this time. Usually he would have hated the idea of being picked up, but with Casey it felt… Comforting, as weird as that might have sounded if he’d tried to explain it out loud. MacCready draped his arms over Casey’s shoulders this time, trusting Casey not to drop him, and melted into the kiss, letting Casey explore his mouth with his tongue. Casey carried him the two steps to the bed, setting him down gently on the mattress and kneeling over him; MacCready felt one knee press down on the mattress either side of his hips and a jolt of mingled anticipation and fear and excitement shot down his spine right to his cock. Casey’s hands were warm and familiar and strange all at once, fingers hooking under the belt around Bobby’s duster to unfasten it.

 

“Is this okay?” Casey asked softly. It was a loaded question. MacCready wanted Casey to undress him more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, but at the same time he couldn’t help a nagging worry that Casey might find him wanting in some way. MacCready knew he wasn’t particularly masculine - people had been using the word ‘scrawny’ to describe him since he was a kid, and showed no signs of stopping even now that he was in his twenties. Even his three month stint as a gardener and handyman didn’t seem to have built up much in the way of muscle. He was short and skinny and pointy, and suddenly he had no idea what Casey - broad, tall, toned Casey - even saw in him. He’d taken too long to answer, he realised, and Casey’s hands had stilled at his belt.

 

“Yeah. It’s okay.” He gave a quick smile and nodded: Casey searched his face, but seemed to find no cause for concern there. Satisfied, he pulled MacCready in for another kiss, unclipping the belt and helping him out of his duster. He broke the kiss to toss the coat over onto the other bed, returning quickly to pluck at the hem of MacCready’s undershirt and flick another questioning look at him. MacCready nodded again and Casey stripped it off him slowly. His skin met the cool air and he shivered. _Hahhhh… Okay, so we’re really doing this._

 

“God, you’re beautiful,” Casey breathed and caught his lip between his teeth, eyes dark with desire as they roamed over MacCready’s chest. He placed his hands around MacCready’s bare ribcage, rubbing lazy circles on his chest with his thumbs. It was hard to stay self-conscious under Casey’s admiring gaze; he didn’t seem to be able to tear his eyes away. Could it really be that he actually did like what he saw, dirt and pigeon chestwith its sad little patch of sparse hair and protruding ribs and all? It was hard to believe, but Casey’s expression was extremely convincing. With a slow smile, Casey took MacCready’s hands in his own and pressed them gently to the lapels of his leather jacket, encouraging MacCready to help him out of it.

 

MacCready’s self-consciousness was melting almost as quickly as it had formed, and he pushed Casey’s jacket down his shoulders and arms, taking full advantage of the opportunity to run his hands over Casey’s muscular biceps as he did so. Casey grinned at that; MacCready shrugged. Now that he could touch he was damned if he was going to keep his hands to himself; he’d been holding himself back from running his hands over those arms for weeks. He took the jacket and tossed it over to the other bed where it landed on top of his duster. Too fascinated to be embarrassed, Bobby watched as Casey sat back on his heels and pulled the dirty white t shirt over his head and off. He touched a tentative hand to Casey’s broad, muscular torso, and realised that he’d never once felt jealous of Casey the way he felt jealous of Sturges, even though the two were similarly shaped. He loved it, loved the sight of him, scars and dirt and chest hair, thicker tufts under his arms, muscles shifting like liquid under his skin. He loved the warm, reassuring weight of him. He loved loving it, and how new it all felt, marvelling at everything that made Casey’s body so different to what he was used to, and at the strength of the raw desire the sight aroused in him.

 

Casey grinned at the touch and leaned over to kiss him again, hands at Bobby’s waist, roaming hungrily over his skin, each swipe of his thumb over MacCready’s nipples sending hot little shocks of pleasure right to his crotch. Bobby could feel a drop of wetness soaking into the front of his underwear as Casey’s hands drifted down, running over his hips a few times. “I like _this_ ,” Casey said, brushing the back of his fingers down the trail of hair that started at Bobby’s belly button and disappeared under his waistband. Bobby couldn’t help but preen a little at that. He was proud of his happy trail; it hadn’t come in until about a year ago, long after everything else. Casey’s fingers were brushing lightly over the waistband of his pants, now. “Do you mind if I…?”

 

MacCready thought he might die if Casey didn’t. He swallowed and nodded, and gave a gasp as Casey reached down between his own legs and palmed Bobby’s dick through his pants. The touch electrified him - his whole body seemed to spasm and his hips started to move of their own accord, thrusting shamelessly into Casey’s grip. Casey grinned. “Is that good?” he asked, peppering kisses along Bobby’s jawline and neck as Bobby clutched at his arms, gripping them reflexively. MacCready swallowed again, barely able to draw breath.

 

“No, it sucks,” he managed, with a weak grin.

 

“Well, then I’d better stop,” said Casey, and made to draw his hand away. MacCready grabbed his wrist, holding it firmly in place.

 

“If you stop I might kill you,” he warned, and Casey laughed aloud at that.

 

“What if I said I have a better idea?” he asked, resuming the movement of his hand and making it hard to think.

 

“Um…” said MacCready, pressing his lips together as he slid his hand over Casey’s, and then, “sure.”

 

Casey pushed MacCready’s legs apart with one knee, keeping his hand on MacCready’s dick for as long as he could while he repositioned himself so he was lying on top of him, their legs interlocked. Slowly, watching for any sign of discomfort, he lowered himself down and rolled his hips forward and up - Bobby saw stars as the molten heat between his legs met Casey’s, even through both pairs of pants. He clutched at Casey’s hips, digging his fingers in, as they began to rock together.

 

MacCready’s whole world had stopped existing outside of Casey; his weight anchoring him to the mattress, the texture of his hair under MacCready’s fingers, the heat and the rhythmic pressure of his hips, the scent of him that was dirt and sweat and something else that was just so completely _Casey_. MacCready wanted to wallow in it, to close his eyes and breathe Casey in, to drown in him. He could hear himself giving little whimpers every now and again, and didn’t even care that it seemed greatly amusing to Casey. Little puffs of breathless laughter ghosted over the skin at MacCready’s neck, sending little shivers through him. He was losing his mind; if he didn’t come soon Bobby was going to pass out, he knew it. After what seemed like an age Casey lifted himself up and away from him, sitting back to straddle one of Bobby’s legs and prompting a weak little mewl of protest.

 

“Don’t worry,” he reassured him softly, as Bobby swallowed and tried to make his brain catch up. “I’m coming back.” As Bobby watched Casey took his hand and pressed it to his own waistband - it took his lust-drenched brain a few seconds, but suddenly it clicked what Casey wanted him to do. Fingers like jelly, he fumbled with the button. He pulled down the zipper and stopped, flicking a questioning look up at Casey, who smiled and gave a quick nod. Permission granted, he pushed Casey’s leathers down to his thighs with no small difficulty, though Casey wiggled his hips to help. Bobby caught his lip between his teeth as Casey’s cock escaped its confines and bounced once or twice; he couldn’t help but stare. It was the first time he’d seen another guy’s cock this close up, and this hard; as turned on as he already was, the sight sent a flash of something hot right to his own dick, making it jerk in his pants and leak another warm driblet of pre-come. Casey smiled, uncharacteristically shyly.

 

“Not the most impressive, I know,” he said quietly, giving himself a few quick strokes. Bobby couldn’t tell if that was genuine or just Casey being self-deprecating for the sake of it.

 

“Well, _I’m_ impressed,” he said; it was literally the first thing he thought of, but it was true. Casey huffed a laugh and ran a hand through his hair.

 

“Flattery will get you everywhere.” There was a note of something in there that Bobby couldn’t quite place; relief? The thought got lost as a larger one loomed.

 

He bit his lip; asking for things during sex always embarrassed him. “Can I…” he mumbled at last, unable to look at Casey’s face.

 

“Hell yeah,” said Casey, and leaned over to kiss him again. Bobby closed his eyes and reached out, the pads of his fingers gently touching the velvety hardness; he slid them down and under to the base and circled Casey with his hand, giving a gentle, experimental tug. Casey shivered and gave a low groan into his mouth at the touch; encouraged, Bobby moved his hand back towards himself and felt the tip draw a drop of wetness along his palm. He pushed back toward Casey until he felt the soft skin of Casey’s balls resting on the backs of his fingers, and then forward again slowly. Casey pulled out of the kiss to look at him with a hazy smile.

 

“You’re killing me,” he said softly.

 

“Is this okay?” Bobby asked, unable to help himself. Casey kissed him again briefly, reaching a hand to rest gently at the back of Bobby’s neck.

 

“It’s perfect,” he said. “ _You’re_ perfect.” Bobby nodded, and continued gently tugging and pushing back, fascinated at the sensation of someone else’s dick in his hand, at how different Casey’s felt to his own. “What about you, can I…?”

 

Casey waited for Bobby’s nod before he sat back and leaned forward, and began to work on his belt and zipper. Bobby obediently lifted his hips off the bed and allowed Casey to push his pants down to his thighs, shuddering as his cock met the cool air.

 

Casey gave an appreciative hum. “Mmm. Not too shabby yourself,” he said, with a nod at Bobby’s dick where it hovered over his belly, hard enough to keep itself aloft. “May I?” He asked, and waited for a nod of permission. He took Bobby’s already wet dick in his hand and gave it a few slow strokes, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the sensitive spot just beneath the tip; Bobby gasped and writhed at the touch, making Casey chuckle.

 

“Shut up,” said Bobby, and reached a hand to the back of Casey’s neck to pull him into another fierce kiss. Casey bore him down onto the mattress, hips already pushing rhythmically against Bobby’s, the hair on his belly rubbing over and over against the sensitive spot on the underside of Bobby’s dripping dick. Bobby ground his own hips right back in return, hands skating down Casey’s muscular back to cup his ass, squeezing and kneading and pulling the two of them even closer together with each thrust. If they were a little restricted by the pants they hadn’t bothered to pull all the way off, then neither cared.

 

“God, you’re so _wet_ ,” Casey breathed in his ear, as if it were the hottest thing he’d ever experienced; Bobby had to bite his lip to keep from coming right then.

 

“Ah… Casey, I’m…” he warned, but Casey kissed his jaw.

 

“Me too,” he said breathlessly. “Bobby… ah - ” In that second Casey’s stuttering groan was the most sinful thing Bobby had ever heard, and it was enough to tip him over the edge - he came, muffling his cry in Casey’s shoulder as everything went white. Casey dug his fingers into Bobby’s hip as he came too, shooting hot jets of come all over his belly, mixing with Bobby’s come and spilling over onto the mattress.

 

They lay without moving for a long moment, the only sound in the room the two of them catching their breath. Casey’s hand still rested on Bobby’s hip; he rubbed his thumb lazily over it, eyes drifting closed, head on Bobby’s shoulder. Bobby carded his fingers through Casey’s hair; Casey’s weight on top of him kept him warm, safely anchored. It had been a long, long time since Bobby had felt this at peace with the world, and with himself.

 

“Haaa…” said Casey after a while. It came out as the laziest laugh MacCready had ever heard. He kissed MacCready’s shoulder and pushed himself up on one elbow, twisting his head around to look down at their legs.

 

“Hmm?” Bobby was too sleepy and orgasm-stupid to care, but it felt polite to at least let Casey know he hadn’t actually fallen asleep yet.

 

“We didn’t even take our boots off,” said Casey. His voice sounded deeper, roughened by sex and too many cigarettes. Bobby lifted his head and squinted at their feet.

 

“Huh. Look at that.” He let his head fall back on the pillow. He felt like he should probably be embarrassed, lying here with his pants around his thighs, covered in cooling jizz, but honestly it was pretty hard to care. Everything was warm and comfortable and drowsy, and if he could, Bobby would stay here like this forever. He kissed Casey’s bicep, breathed in the scent of him.

 

Casey bent and kissed his temple, smiling when that made Bobby smile, and pushed himself up onto his knees. Bobby shivered at the loss of his warmth, and the cool air on his wet belly. “Don’t worry, I’m not going far,” said Casey, and reached over to root in his pack for something. After a moment he returned with a dishrag, and began mopping himself up.

 

“Here,” he said, waking Bobby from his doze.

 

“Hmm? Oh, thanks.” He accepted the cloth and cleaned up while Casey got up to pull some pajama bottoms and blankets out of his pack. Usually both slept in their clothes, especially on the road, and MacCready had never really worn pajamas before but Casey seemed to think it was the obvious thing to do, so he followed suit. They felt nice on his skin, it turned out, and he wouldn’t have felt comfortable sleeping naked anyway. Pajamas on and blankets arranged, they snuggled down on the mattress. It seemed obvious that Casey would be the big spoon; he was taller. He drew Bobby into his arms and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.

 

“You okay?” he asked quietly, running his fingers through Bobby’s hair. Bobby nodded.

 

“Yeah,” said Bobby sleepily, with a little sigh of satisfaction. “Been a long time since I was this okay.” He felt the ghost of Casey’s warm laughter on his shoulder, followed by another kiss.

 

“Good to hear,” said Casey. “Not freaked out at all?” He added, rubbing Bobby’s arm slowly.

 

“No. Should I be?”

 

“No, just making sure. It can be big deal, for some people, sleeping with someone of the same sex for the first time. Difficult to handle, emotionally.”

 

Bobby thought for a moment. “No, actually I’m fine,” he said after a while. “I think I did all my freaking out about that a while ago. Not the sex, necessarily, but the being bisexual part.”

 

Casey hummed thoughtfully. “Cool, okay. Well, if you find yourself starting to freak out, just know that you can talk to me about it if you want to. I’ve been through it all, too, so.”

 

Bobby smiled, and brought Casey’s fingers up to his lips, and kissed them softly. “You got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I know it's been a while, this chapter has been one of the hardest to write so far. Weird, but there it is!


	11. Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But too much is fallin’ in mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re reading this, thank you so much for coming back! I’m sorry it’s been so long, life got in the way for a while but I did always plan to come back to this. I’m hoping to reach the end sometime soon, and I may or may not be working on a one-shot prequel and a spin-off… If anyone would be up for that… ;) I’m seriously having so much fun writing this!

MacCready had never been given to superstition, preferring to place his trust in things he could see. That said, he hadn’t survived in the Wasteland for this long by not trusting his gut. And when he woke the next morning, his gut was telling him that something was very, very wrong.

It was too quiet. Starlight was one of the busiest settlements of the lot, there were always people bustling around within earshot - traders, farmers, the guards moving from post to post, the burble of the turrets, bells clanking around the necks of the brahmin… But there was just nothing. No sound at all.

He sat up slowly, flicking a quick glance at Casey, and reached for his gun, taking care not to make a sound.

“Casey,” he said softly, eyes trained on the door of the shack.

“Muhhhhh…” said Casey.

“Something’s wrong,” he said softly, and turned his head at a quiet click of a .44 being cocked. In spite of himself his lips crooked into a grin as Casey moved past him and off the bed, stealing silently across the floor.

“Watch the door,” he said in a low voice, stooping to pick up his pants, gun still trained on the exit. MacCready nodded.

“Yeah,” he said as Casey dressed faster than MacCready had ever seen him do anything. Neither wanted to face whatever was out there while dressed only in their tighty-whiteys, so as soon as Casey was done MacCready began to pull on his own clothes.

Casey went first, holding MacCready back with a hand. It made sense; MacCready had the long-range weapon, but that didn’t mean he had to like the idea of Casey walking out into whatever was outside waiting for them. His finger tightened on the trigger of the rifle as Casey reached for the handle and pushed the door open, gun up in front of his face.

The next sound he heard made MacCready’s insides turn to water.

“Well good morning, sleeping beauty,” said a voice that was as intimately familiar to MacCready as that of an ex-lover, roughened by more cigarettes than even MacCready could smoke, and tinged with a trace of an accent that spoke of sand and fire geckos. He couldn’t see the man around the door, but he knew who it was. He saw Casey’s shoulder twitch as his trigger finger itched.

“Fuck are you?” Casey growled, as MacCready put his head around the doorframe just to have his worst fears confirmed.

“Baker,” he breathed.

“Well, if it ain’t little Arr Jay MacCready,” said Baker, leaning back against the counter of one of the stalls, crossing one foot over the other looking supremely relaxed. His gloved hands were folded, one clasped loosely over the back of the other. He was armed - of course he was - but his gun was holstered. He didn’t need it, with the array of Gunners standing around him, their own guns pointing at MacCready and Casey. “Lookit that, two for one.” It was clear from Baker’s tone that he had known full well that they were both there. “Drop the guns. Come on, drop ‘em.”

They did as they were told, reluctantly. A Gunner stooped and took them both. “Hands up,” Baker continued. “Black, search ‘em.”

“What’d you do to my settlement?” Casey barked, as he was patted down. MacCready’s world had shrunk down to Baker and himself; he blinked and shook himself out of it, looked around as another Gunner removed all his weapons - even the knife in his boot. He grimaced as it was removed.

A body caught his eye. And then another. And another. And another. A brahmin by the pool, sprawled out on its side, packs still tied on, handler lying unmoving on the ground next to it. He couldn’t look at the rest; he didn’t need to. Everyone was dead, and he and Casey were about to follow.

“Same thing I’ve done to all your settlements,” Baker replied, coolly. “Yeah, that’s right, I said all of ‘em.”

All of them? All of them at once? How is that even possible? Casey barked a slightly hysterical laugh.

“And the Castle? Wasn’t that good enough?” asked Casey. Baker laughed.

“Oh, no,” he said. “That was just to take out the main bulk of your forces.” Baker cocked his head to one side, smiling gently. “And you did all the hard work for me, didn’t you? Putting all your best men and women in one place. I’ll give you credit, I didn’t expect you to win that one. You killed a lot of good men that day. Gonna have to pay for that. Speaking of which…” He pushed himself up and away from the counter and wandered around, indicating Starlight’s assets.

“You really thought you could build up these places, grow food, make clean water, beds, all the rest of it, and no-one was gonna take it from you?” said Baker, in disbelief. “That’s gotta be the dumbest shit I ever heard. You must be new around here.”

MacCready flicked a glance at Casey. His face was a terrible mix of grief and rage; it was hard to look at, so MacCready didn’t. Suddenly he felt Baker’s gaze fall on him; his jaw tightened, and he felt his heart rate jump.

“And as for your boyfriend, well. He’s just the icing on the cake. You know I been lookin’ for you all over, Arr Jay. I bet you thought you were real smooth, huh, gettin’ your big, bad boyfriend to take out Mass Pike for you? Too piss-weak to do it on your own, ain’t that right? And then you get confident. Oh yeah, you’re the big man now, shooting one of my guys in the back of the head, and making the other two chase you into a firing squad.” He tutted. “That’s low, Arr Jay. Lower than dirt.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I guess they just couldn’t get enough of me, and it looks like you can’t either. Listen, if you wanted to suck my dick so bad, you coulda just asked.” Even as he spoke, his own brain was screaming at him to stop making it worse.

Baker wandered over and grasped MacCready’s chin, pulling his face uncomfortably close. MacCready twisted away in disgust, and more fear than he would have liked. Baker chuckled. “Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to dealing with you. That, I will see to personally. Nice and slow.”

“You touch him and I’ll kill you and every single one of your men,” said Casey in a low voice. It heartened MacCready a little, knowing that Casey absolutely meant to try, even if it wasn’t possible. Baker only laughed.

“Oh, making threats now? That’s cute,” he said. “I would have enjoyed hurting him anyway, but knowing how much it’ll hurt you? That’s what’ll make it all the sweeter. I’ll even let you watch before I kill you.”

MacCready heard the tiniest noise escape Casey’s throat, and any scrap of hope he might have still had up to that point evaporated. This was it.

A strange, fragile kind of calm came over him at that moment, when he knew he was about to die. He’d been skipping across the Wastes all his adult life, dancing just out of reach of death. He’d always known it was a matter of time - everyone knew that. No-one died of old age in this world. Maybe he deserved this, for Mass Pike. Maybe he didn’t. He had certainly earned it. He thought of Duncan, and felt briefly glad that no-one would be able to tell him how his dad went down. He always thought he’d die fighting, but it seemed that Baker had other plans. He just hoped there would be some way to spit in Baker’s eye, one last time, before the end. Then at least he could die knowing he’d gotten the last laugh.

Baker turned as a few strains of music drifted through the dusty air; an eyebot floated toward them, bobbing up and down as it blared an incongruously cheerful song; something about Uranium Fever. MacCready felt a hysterical giggle bubbling up in his throat, and pushed it down. Even a Mister Handy might have had enough firepower to create a distraction, however short. An eyebot was almost a slap in the face. Baker drew his gun out and waited until it drew nearer to shoot it; it exploded in a burst of flame and sparks, blackened pieces showering the dirt.

“Now,” he said, holstering his gun again, making a show of the fact that he didn’t need it. “Where were we?”

Casey shifted his weight. “Can you do one thing for me?” He asked Baker. “Call it the last request of a dying man.” The Gunner captain leader inclined his head.

“Maybe. I have taken everything from you, after all. I don’t know why you would trust me to do it, but go ahead and ask. I’ve won, so I’m feeling generous.”

At that exact second a lightning bolt struck the ground in front of him - MacCready threw his arms up in front of his eyes. As his vision cleared a man stood in front of them, dressed head to toe in black. Casey grinned.

“Eat my ass,” he said to Baker, grabbing the man with one hand and MacCready with the other, and the world went white.

~*~

Not in a good way. A great crack and MacCready fell to what were probably his knees. Everything was still white, but as his brain caught up he realised it wasn’t light - everything around him was literally bright white. Everything.

He threw up.

“That happens sometimes apparently,” said Casey’s voice, somewhere above and behind him. Oh good, at least he wasn’t alone. He lifted his head to see the man in black approach a panel on the painfully white wall, and press it.

“I need a cleaner in the entryway,” he said to the panel. Looking at him against the whiteness of everything else felt sort of like trying to push a brahmin into his ear; it hurt. MacCready’s stomach churned, but he swallowed against it.

“Okay,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. “What the living fuck just happened?”

“Deus ex machina,” said Casey grimly, sounding exactly as though he thought MacCready would know what that meant.

MacCready did not know what that meant. What he did know was that Casey sounded angry - hardly surprising. MacCready wasn’t stupid; he knew where they were. There wasn’t anyone else in the world who had the power to make people just literally disappear into thin air. Any other time the thought of being here would have scared the piss out of him, but he seemed to be all out of that particular emotion at the moment.

“Where’s Shaun?” Casey demanded. The man in black didn’t move.

“Father asked me to bring you to him upon our return.” He sounded clipped, like a machine. A synth then; of course he fucking was. Duh.

“Good, let’s go,” said Casey, and a pair of not exactly gentle hands hauled MacCready to his feet. “Hey, Bobby, looks like you get to meet my kid after all.”

“Wait, wait…” he protested, twisting himself out of Casey’s grasp. “How the hell did Shaun know where we were? Or that we were in trouble? How did you know - ”

“The eyebot, stupid,” said Casey, already leaving the room with the synth. “Come on.”

MacCready drew back, stung. Stupid, huh? Now wasn’t the time, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to let that one go. He followed Casey and the synth out into the Institute, squinting against the brightness. He’d literally never seen anywhere so clean in his life; it was like emerging from a dark room and staring directly into the sun. He wondered for a moment why the people bustling around weren’t staring at them; he and Casey looked nothing like anyone else here in their torn, filthy clothes. Everyone around them was pristine in white, and he realised that most of them must be synths. He shivered. Suddenly the whiteness of the Institute didn’t just feel painfully bright, but also cold. Clinical. Like being examined under a microscope.

They stepped into some kind of glass elevator, and if he hadn’t been able to see through the walls of the thing he would have sworn they hadn’t moved at all. As the doors glided silently open again they revealed a man in a white coat, with gently graying hair and a beard to match. His eyes looked so much like Casey’s that there wasn’t anyone else he could possibly be. Suddenly MacCready missed the brown of the Wasteland.

“Father,” said the man, addressing Casey. “I trust you’re not hurt?”

“Shaun,” said Casey, with a stiff nod.

“And this must be your… partner? R. J. MacCready, is that right?” said Shaun, his gaze fixing on MacCready. If he had felt like he was under scrutiny just by being here, it was nothing to this. Shaun’s gaze felt uncomfortably… penetrating. It felt as if the man was looking right through his clothes, and his skin, and his soul. He tried not to shuffle his feet, preferring to lift his chin just a touch.

“Bobby’s my boyfriend, yeah,” said Casey. “Which I’m sure you already knew, and if you think I give a fuck what you think about that, you’re dead wrong.”

It looked for all the world as though Shaun were the father and Casey were the son; aside from Shaun calling him Father, the conversation so far would have given that impression to someone who didn’t know the truth. Casey was even beginning to sound like a petulant teenager, not that MacCready would have told him that.

“On the contrary,” said Shaun, with a smile that was a little too sudden, and too sharp. “It’s lovely to be able to welcome you both. And to meet you, Bobby. May I call you Bobby?”

The man had some nerve. “You may not,” said Bobby, straightening his back, hoping that his contempt for this idea was showing as clearly in his face as it did in his choice of words. He was gratified when Shaun’s cool expression slipped - only the tiniest touch, but enough. “Just MacCready.”

“As you like. In spite of what my father might believe, I am overjoyed to find that he’s met someone who seems to make him happy.”

“Oh, cut the shit, Shaun,” said Casey. “And don’t talk to him. What the fuck was that all about?”

Shaun smiled mildly, just as though his own father hadn’t sworn at him. “One would think a rescue might merit a ‘thank you’,” he said. The smile didn’t touch his eyes. MacCready suppressed a shiver.

“Oh, right, thank you for the gracious rescue,” said Casey, with a deep, sarcastic bow. “Thanks so much for saving us. How else would I be able to savour watching the Gunners fuck literally everything I’ve built in this godforsaken shithole?”

“Would you prefer it if I had left you there to die?”

“At least then I wouldn’t owe you.”

“You know you don’t owe me, father.”

Casey gave a bitter laugh. “Ohhh… You and I both know that isn’t true. You’ll find a way to use this to screw me, somehow.”

Shaun sighed, and folded his hands patiently. The synth stood quietly off to one side; it hadn’t moved a muscle since Shaun had begun to speak. MacCready kept forgetting it was there, and then jumping when he caught sight of it.

“You and I have only met once,” said Shaun. “I appreciate that I may not be quite what you were expecting, but I am simply making the best of the world I have found myself in, just as you are. I am most certainly not out to screw you, father.”

“Stop calling me father!” Casey yelled. “It’s fucking weird!”

Shaun’s smile widened, though his eyes remained cold. “Perhaps I should leave you both to get comfortable,” he said. “I’m sure you both have things you wish to discuss. X6, please show my father and Mr. MacCready to their quarters.”

“No, fuck you,” said Casey, shaking the synth’s hand off his arm. “You owe me some answers. Why was there an eyebot that just happened to drift past the right settlement at the right time?” Shaun looked as though he were considering whether to answer. He held up a hand to X6, who stood down.

“The eyebots serve more than one purpose,” he said after a moment. “They advertise companies and services two hundred years out of business, so people treat them as a harmless relic, an oddity of the old world. They can be reprogrammed, as Diamond City discovered, to play music, and more up-to-date advertisements. They bring a little cheer into people’s lives, like little hovering radios. People imbue them with personality, even. It’s not so much that people trust them, because it’s not a case of trust. Would you ‘trust’ a teddy bear? It simply doesn’t have the capacity for betrayal. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be used for tasks other than those for which it was originally intended. People forget that they are called Eyebots for a reason.

“Here at the Institute, we create simulations of life itself. It’s really not hard for us to hack a radio.”

“So you have been spying on me,” said Casey, sounding unsurprised.

“I would call it ‘watching over you’,” said Shaun. “You didn’t grow up here in the Wasteland like everyone else. I needed to be sure you would be safe. How else would I know so much about you, and what you’ve done here in the Commonwealth since you left Vault One Eleven? You barely told me anything last time we met.”

“So that makes it okay for you to spy on me? Is that how you knew about Bobby? Have you been watching us?”

Shaun reacted as if slapped, before bringing his expression quickly back under control. “Of course not,” he said. “Of all the friends you’ve made since you left the Vault, you’ve spent by far the most time with Mr. MacCready. You’re inseparable for the most part, practically joined at the hip. I merely posited a hypothesis based on the available information, which was only confirmed a moment ago by you yourself.”

“I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t just assume we’re best friends.”

“I didn’t assume anything. Besides, ‘best friends’ don’t usually need to take a three month break from each other. No, I knew there would be some kind of emotional difficulty there, am I right in thinking that it had something to do with mother?”

Casey bristled. “That’s none of your fucking business. And don’t you ever mention her to me again. You lost any right to ever speak of her when you called her death ‘collateral damage’.” If Casey’s rage at Kellogg had been white-hot, now it was colder than death. Than the Institute, maybe. It was all Bobby could do not to take a step away from him.

Shaun sighed as if the words had been merely spoken, instead of flung at him like daggers. “As you wish,” he said again.

“This is all bullshit,” said Casey. “We have to get back out into the Wasteland so we can start fixing this mess.”

“I really wouldn’t advise that,” said Shaun. “Not alone, at least.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“May I make a suggestion?” Shaun asked, and without waiting for an answer, continued, “The Institute could be of assistance in this particular situation. We have a large number of synths equipped with combat capabilities, if it is the case that your settlements have all been taken, as this Sergeant Baker seemed to suggest, you will need an army to take them back.”

“No thanks,” Casey spat. “Why do you have synth soldiers at all, may I ask?”

“Because preparedness can mean the difference between winning a war and having everything you’ve worked for obliterated. As I’m sure you now understand.”

Casey ignored the barb. “Are you expecting a war?”

“In this world? Always. Please, consider my suggestion. You may be disappointed in what you’ve found here, but I am still your son. I want to help you, father.”

Casey glared at him; Shaun gazed mildly back, unmoved. “We’ll manage, thanks,” said Casey, after a long moment. “Now zap us back to Sanctuary, will you?”

Shaun shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said.

“Shaun…” said Casey, a clear note of warning in his voice.

“I tried to convince you, but now I really must insist. It isn’t safe to send you back. Please, stay a night. One night, and think about my offer. If you still refuse in the morning, I will send you back as you request.”

“Why don’t you save us all some time, and send us back now?”

Shaun lifted a hand to the synth, which was still waiting. “X6, if you please.” It moved toward Casey, who reached for his gun - the one Baker had had taken from him.

“Fuck!” He tried to punch the synth, but it caught his fist easily and held it. MacCready jumped on it while its back was turned - it jerked its elbow back and into his chest, knocking the wind right out of him. The blow sent him across the room and into the wall on the far side, where he crumpled to the floor gasping for breath. He watched helplessly as the synth took hold of Casey’s bicep and gripped it hard enough to make him wince.

“Please, father, this will be much easier if you allow X6 to show you to your rooms,” said Shaun. “Mr. MacCready, I should warn you that the synths are programmed not to hurt myself or my father, but that we two are the only ones with such immunity. If you attack X6 again, or any other of my synths, they are authorized to prevent you from doing harm by any and all means necessary.”

A grip like iron fastened itself around Bobby’s upper arm and dragged him inexorably to his feet. He couldn’t help a cry of pain - it was ignored. “Which suite would you like me to show your guests to, Father?” the synth asked. Shaun looked them both over.

“The double,” he said after a moment. “We had a twin prepared just in case my hypothesis was incorrect,” he added to Casey. “I had a feeling we wouldn’t be needing it, however.” The synth nodded and turned, bringing Casey and Bobby with it. Casey twisted his head around to glare at Shaun.

“If you let your tin can hurt Bobby one more time,” he growled, “I will burn this place to the fucking ground.”

The threat was somewhat impotent knowing that Casey couldn’t even extricate himself from the synth’s grip, never mind set anything on fire, but MacCready appreciated it all the same.


	12. Things May Look Very Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When do you find the rainbow? Only after rain. Wish on the moon and you’ll have your happy, happy time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been so long, life and writer’s block have been Happening. It’s a long one but there’s smut at the end! (Some dark stuff about murder and sexual assault in here, between the bolded X’s in the second scene if you don’t want to read it.)

The room was just like the rest of the Institute; cold white and clinical. A blue vase stood on the dresser, but if anything the little splash of colour only served to make the whiteness of the rest of the room more impersonal. It was as if a robot had tried to decorate it - which was, MacCready reflected, likely exactly what had happened.

 

“You will be summoned later,” said X6. “Please do not try to leave this room. Father cannot grant access to the rest of the Institute at this time, and cannot guarantee your safety should you leave without an escort.” The door slid noiselessly closed on it, shutting it out. MacCready was glad, even though it had basically just confirmed that they were prisoners here. The thing gave him the willies, even more so than the rest of the synths they’d seen since arriving. The horrible thought occurred that he’d probably met more machines just like X6 than he realised, and a cold shiver flashed over his skin. Casey kicked the bed.

 

“So we’re locked in here? Fucking _perfect_. I can’t believe that asshole is even related to me,” he burst out. “I hate the way he makes me feel like he’s _my_ father, not the other way around. It feels like being sixteen again, and not in a good way. Even bitching about it makes me sound like a fucking teenager.” He sighed and kicked the bed again, but with a little less force this time.

 

MacCready sank down onto the bed. Casey was kind of acting like a teenager but he could hardly blame him, and was not about to point it out. Maybe it was catching; MacCready’s disgust with Shaun had fully recovered him of his awe of the Institute, so he took a certain vicious pleasure in swinging his legs up and dumping his muddy boots on their crisp, white sheets. A bit of filth would make them a little less difficult to look at without squinting. This whole place was starting to give him a migraine; how anyone was supposed to actually sleep in here was beyond him. He hoped idly that Casey _would_ burn it down.

 

“Don’t let him get to you,” he offered. Casey stopped pacing to stare at him, and a wry grin flashed briefly across his features.

 

“Oh yeah, Mister If You Wanted To Suck My Dick So Bad You Should Have Asked?”

 

“I can’t help it, it’s like a reflex,” said Bobby, glad that Casey had gotten at least some amusement out of their shitty day. It was true; he had never been able to help running his mouth. He was just having to be a little more creative with it than usual now that certain words were forbidden from his vocabulary. ‘Dick’ was kind of close to the line, but he figured he could get away with it under the circumstances.

 

“You really must have a death wish,” Casey smiled, shaking his head.

 

“We were gonna die anyway, what’s the difference?”

 

“Yeah, but we didn’t,” said Casey, sinking down next to him on the bed and cupping the back of his neck, pulling him in gently until their foreheads touched. They sat like that for a while, content to shut the world out for a few minutes. Finally Casey spoke again, lifting his head and moving back.

 

“I’m sorry for calling you stupid,” he said. “You’re not, at all.”

 

“I was gonna wait to bring that one up, but if you wanna do this now, then okay. Don’t ever call me that again,” MacCready warned. “I know you were mad, but still.”

 

“That was no excuse. It was uncalled for, and I shouldn’t have said it.”

 

“You’re forgiven. This time,” said MacCready. “Mostly because you apologised before I could call you out on it.”

 

“It won’t happen again, I promise.”

 

“Good,” said MacCready.

 

“I wonder what happened to Preston and Hancock and everyone else. I hope they’re OK,” said Casey. “I know that if they went down they will have done it fighting, but…”

 

“Hey. They’ll be OK. They fight just as hard as you do. Can you see anyone taking _Hancock_ out?” The thought of going up against the ghoul was one Bobby hoped he’d never have to seriously contemplate. He was quick, but Hancock was determined.

 

Casey barked a laugh. “Yeah, not so much. I wish we had some way of knowing what really happened to the other settlements, though. I’m hoping Baker was lying about taking all of them out, but it would be really nice to know for sure.”

 

“Well…” said MacCready. Casey looked at him.

 

“No,” he said. “I already thought of that. I’m not letting Shaun help with any of this.”

 

“I’m not saying use his army. I mean… _yeesh_. Those things creep the hell out of me. But he said he has eyebots all over the place, why not just… Take a look? See what they’re seeing? I mean they’re already out there, you wouldn’t be asking Shaun to _do_ anything.”

 

“No.”

 

“Come on, Case, be realistic. If we go out there we need recon, and if we have to do it by ourselves on foot it could take weeks. By the time we’re done, if there were still any settlements holding out, the Gunners will have taken them for sure. They need our help _now_.”

 

Casey stared at him, clearly torn. On the one hand, he’d sworn never to have anything to do with Shaun, but on the other, he’d already made the mistake of not taking Bobby’s advice when it came to the Gunners, and now the Minutemen were paying the price for it.

 

He looked down at his lap, jaw twitching. “I hate this,” he ground out. Bobby slipped a hand into his.

 

“I know,” he said. “I hate it too. But you gotta swallow your pride if you’re gonna save ‘em.”

 

“It’s not just my pride, it’s…” he stopped, and squeezed Bobby’s hand. “That guy is up to something, I’m sure of it. This whole thing has the feeling of a setup.”

 

“I hate to say it, Case, but you sound a little paranoid. I mean usually that’s not a bad thing, but… He kinda saved our lives. And even if you’re right, what’s the alternative?”

 

Casey gave him a pained look. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I need to think.”

 

“Sure,” said MacCready, and leaned forward to kiss him gently on the cheek. “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll be right here with you.” Casey smiled. It wasn’t a happy one.

 

“Thank you,” he said.

 

~*~

 

The deal had seemed almost too good to be true. MacCready, and a synth army to help him take out all the settlements in exchange for _one man_? Still, Raines wasn’t just any ordinary man, as he knew from bitter, shitty experience. If he’d gotten up Baker’s nose as much as he had, Baker had no trouble believing he’d pissed the Doc off too; though how and why, he didn’t know or give a shit. All he wanted was to finish off the fucking Minutemen for good, and murder MacCready slowly. That little pus bag seemed to think he was better than the Gunners - well, Baker would show him exactly what he thought of _that_.

 

He didn’t even really care about having the settlements so much as taking them away from those shit-eating do-gooders, though he had to admit the food would be useful. After Quincy he thought he’d squashed the Minutemen, but they kept on popping back up like fucking radroaches - no thanks to Raines. He’d been nothing but a pain in Baker’s ass ever since he stuck his head out of that fucking Vault, and though Baker was delighted that the Doc had apparently taken the shithead off his hands, he would very much like to know where the fuck MacCready was.

 

**XXX**

 

Part of him would have been happy for the Doc to take care of him - it would save Baker the job - but the larger part wanted to do it himself, personal. He could already feel his combat knife sliding between those skinny ribs, feel MacCready’s hands slapping and scrabbling uselessly at his face as Baker held him down and watched him bleed to death. Smash out what was left of those rotten teeth and skullfuck him while he died. Hell, maybe he’d pull a Pickman, just for the fun of it. Yeah, _that_ would be satisfying, and have the added bonus of giving anyone else thinking of crossing him a good solid warning. But he couldn’t do any of that unless he got his hands on MacCready again, and he needed to know where the Doc had zapped him to.

 

**XXX**

 

Which he would ask him, if the Doc ever showed up. Baker had been pacing the inner perimeter of the shack for near an hour now. It wasn’t a large shack. He’d left Clint outside in charge of the men; they were supposed to leave for Sanctuary before sunset and wait for the other troops to arrive, and if the Doc didn’t show soon then he would just have to meet Baker there. He couldn’t afford to waste another day. The longer they waited, the greater the risk of Garvey finding out what was going on and calling for reinforcements. Yeah, he’d told Raines he had all of the settlements, and that would be true in a few days. But it wasn’t true yet, and the delay was making Baker’s knuckles itch.

 

_Crack_.

 

Baker didn’t even bother to turn around. “This isn’t what we agreed,” he said. He was already pissed off that his quarry had been snatched from his grasp, and that this other asshole was late now did nothing to improve his mood.

 

“Plans change, Sergeant Baker.”

 

“I specifically requested MacCready as part of the deal,” he said, turning around at last. Before him stood two men, one tall, black skin, sunglasses and coat, and the other an older man in a white coat, with salt and pepper hair and beard. “I kept up my end, are you trying to double cross me? Shit, I had no idea you liked him so much. What’d he do, blow you?”

 

The man in the white coat smiled. “Not at all,” he reassured Baker. “Mr. MacCready is of less than no consequence to me. You will have your payment, in full, as we agreed - the settlements and MacCready in exchange for Raines. It will simply take a little longer than I had originally planned.”

 

“Why? You got what you wanted, give me MacCready,” said Baker. It seemed a simple thing to ask.

 

The Doc sighed. “I didn’t _plan_ to have Raines grab hold of him before X6 could teleport him out,” he explained, in a patient tone of voice. “This turn of events has… complicated matters. I cannot simply send Mr. MacCready back here alone.”

 

“Why not? Put a bullet in Raines’s head and zap MacCready back here so I can do the same to him.”

 

The Doc smiled. “You misunderstand,” he said. “I didn’t want General Raines so I could kill him. If I wished him dead, he would be.”

 

Baker frowned. “What? You said you wanted to kill him yourself.”

 

“No, I said I wanted him _delivered to me_ _alive_ ,” said the Doc, shaking his head. “At no point did I imply that this was because I wanted to kill him personally. Or at all, even.”

 

“Well, what the hell do you want with him?” Baker asked, confused. This smelled strongly of fuckery.

 

“The Institute has an interest in him, that is more than you need to know. Remember that part of our agreement was that there were to be no questions. Be assured that Raines will be of no concern to you once our business is successfully concluded. And speaking of business,” the Doc continued smoothly, “since the circumstances have altered somewhat, we must now alter our plans accordingly.”

 

“What do you want?” Baker asked, suspicious. The Doc made a disappointed face.

 

“Now, Sergeant,” he said reproachfully. “I’m not asking much. Nothing that you probably weren’t already planning to do. The terms of our agreement have not changed in any way, I simply need for you to, ah… make sure that General Raines has a front seat to Mr. MacCready’s execution, whenever you choose to hold it.”

 

“Why? You tryna break him?”

 

“As I said, you need know no more than that the Institute has an interest in him. Now, can I trust you to put on a good show for the General? I’m told that you’re a very… _creative_ man. I suspect you will enjoy watching him die. I must admit, I’m looking forward to it myself.”

 

Baker was still frowning. “What’s to stop Raines losing his shit and killing all my men?” Usually this would not have been a concern of Baker’s, but he’d seen what Raines could do. Underestimating him would be beyond stupid, especially if Baker was about to murder his lover in front of him.

 

“We’ll be watching. Not all of your men are _your_ men, remember. A good number of them are mine, in case you’d forgotten. I understand, if it did slip your mind - they are very good facsimiles after all. Just make sure at least one of them is there to witness the proceedings, and we will know when to send X6 to pick up Raines. I don’t think he’ll fall for the eyebot trick again, even once was too much of a coincidence. Oh, and this time, make sure he’s not in physical contact with anyone else when they teleport out,” the Doc added.

 

“Fine. But if I’m forced to kill him, I will,” Baker warned. Even as he spoke he was not entirely sure that he would be _able_ to kill Raines. Fucker seemed to be immortal. Rumour had it that he’d even taken out the deathclaw at the Museum of Witchcraft, the one that had got Hart and the others.

 

“That won’t be necessary, as long as you make sure that one of my synths is in the room. Remember that I need to be able to see what is happening, if I am to send X6 to get my… To get Raines, at the right moment.”

 

“Yeah, I got it,” said Baker. The synths had creeped him out at first, especially knowing that the Doc could see what they saw if he wanted to. It had creeped him out worse when he realised that he had started to forget they weren’t human. He hadn’t told the men, of course; the Doc had sent them in ones and twos, over several months, gradually boosting their numbers. If anyone was suspicious, he just had Clint tell them that the new guys were all raiders, freaked out by what Raines had been doing to some of the gangs and looking to join a bigger, nastier, more organised gang. Hell, some of the new guys really _were_ ex-raiders.

 

“Good. Now, when and where would you like me to send them?” The Doc asked. “I suspect they will ask to be teleported back to Sanctuary, or just outside it, though if they want to go elsewhere I will of course inform you. However, if that is inconvenient, I can simply tell them it isn’t safe there.”

 

“Sanctuary’s fine. Make it Red Rocket, around noon tomorrow. I’ll have my guys watch the road.”

 

“I should watch the entire island, if I were you,” the Doc warned. “General Raines can be very… resourceful. Have the synths keep watch,” he advised. “Oh, and be prepared for them to be armed, I may be forced to give them weapons before I send them out, as a show of faith.”

 

Baker grimaced. “I always assume everyone I meet is armed.”

 

The Doc smiled at this, and spread his arms wide. “I do not carry weapons,” he said. Baker cut his eyes at X6 and back, but said nothing; the Doc laughed. “I suppose you have a point. So we are agreed then?”

 

“Yeah, kill MacCready, make it entertaining. Got it.” Hell, the Doc had got that much right - Baker was definitely going to take his time with this one. As he’d told the man himself earlier, it would be all the sweeter knowing that the worse he hurt MacCready, the worse it would hurt Raines.

 

“And make sure that one of my synths can see what’s happening,” the Doc said again. “That’s very important.”

 

“And I can trust you not to let Raines escape and kill us all, can I?” said Baker.

 

“Of course. My own synths are at risk here as well,” the Doc pointed out. “Why else do you think I loaned them to you? They are a show of faith, as much as a boost to your numbers. I am very much invested in having them back.”

 

Baker doubted the Doc gave much more of a shit about the synths than he did.

 

~*~

 

Casey had been pacing for the last hour; unable to contribute anything of use and having already given his opinion on the matter, Bobby had lain back on the bed, getting the sheets as dirty as he could, and dozed. He woke when he felt Casey’s weight sink down on the bed next to him.

 

“Hey, Bobby? Listen, I need you to promise me something.”

 

This sounded serious. “What is it?” asked Bobby, sitting up, deliberately not agreeing to anything until he knew what Casey wanted. Casey sighed.

 

“I really, _really_ want a shower. Like, so bad. Of all the things I really miss about the old world, apart from the obvious, number one is a hot shower. So, I’m gonna ignore for a while the fact that it belongs to Shaun and just take one, and I’m gonna need you to not tell anyone about it. Okay?”

 

Bobby grinned. “Sure.”

 

Casey pressed a kiss to his lips. “Thank you,” he said. “And hey, if you wanna join me in there, I sure as hell won’t mind.”

 

“It’s tempting. I’ve never had one before,” said MacCready. Casey’s eyes widened.

 

“You haven’t?”

 

“Nope.”

 

Casey stood up and walked around the corner of the bed to stand in front of Bobby, and took his hands, pulling him to his feet.

 

“You’re gonna love it,” he said. MacCready hesitated.

 

“Case… We’re in the Institute, don’t you think they’ll be watching?”

 

“In here, almost certainly. In the bathroom? You’d have to be a special kind of fucked up. They’re spying on us for information, not home-made porn. Besides, ew.”

 

MacCready still wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure you want to? I mean, the settlements…”

 

Casey pressed his lips together. “We can’t do anything about it in here. Besides, clearing my head might help me think. And surviving today makes me want to celebrate,” he added with a grin, and then his face turned serious again. “But if you don’t want to, for whatever reason, then that’s okay.”

 

He looked so genuine that MacCready couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, I want to, trust me.”

 

Casey grinned again and began to draw him toward the bathroom.

 

It was roomy in there, and MacCready wasn’t sure why that was such a surprise. He let Casey draw him into a slow embrace, and shivered as Casey’s hands made their way under his duster and began pushing it off his shoulders. They undressed each other slowly; once they were stripped to the waist Casey bent his head and began to tongue MacCready’s nipple, kissing it as though it were his mouth, making him hitch in a breath. He stopped briefly, and looked up with a wicked grin.

 

“Can I suck your dick?”

 

Bobby groaned, and Casey laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He slid his hand down Bobby’s belly and skated it over his crotch, giving his aching cock a playful squeeze and drawing another gasp from his throat. Then it moved up and began to unfasten his belt, and tug down his zipper. Casey continued to pepper his chest with kisses as he slid Bobby’s pants down over his hips, and helped him step out of them. Bobby’s own hands were at Casey’s belt, reciprocating in kind.

 

Casey kissed his way back up Bobby’s chest and neck, making him shiver, and whispered in his ear. “Let’s get in the shower first.” He took Bobby’s hand and led him toward the stall, stepping inside and turning a dial on the back wall - water began to cascade out of the rose shaped nozzle on the wall. Casey stepped back to let it warm up, and them drew him right inside and shut the door.

 

It was like nothing MacCready had ever experienced. The heat was almost unbearable after the cold of the rest of the bathroom, but that was eclipsed by the feeling of the water hitting him all over like hot rain, and Casey’s hands sliding over his wet skin. If MacCready was embarrassed by the color of the water running off him, it didn’t last long. Casey drew him in and kissed him, and the sensation of Casey’s hard dick sliding wetly in the hollow of his hip was almost enough to make him come all by itself. He kissed Casey’s inner arm as he reached for the shelf to the side of them, making him hum with pleasure.

 

“What’sat?” He asked, as Casey’s hand drew a bottle into view.

 

“Shower gel,” said Casey, and poured some into his hands. “It’s basically liquid soap. Easier to use than a bar.” He replaced the bottle and began to rub the gel into MacCready’s skin, starting with his neck and shoulders and chest and working his way down, bringing forth a mass of bubbles that slid down his wet body; if the water had been slick, this was frictionless. He shivered as Casey’s thumb grazed a hard nipple.

 

Bobby reached for the bottle himself and began to soap Casey up the same way, taking his time and enjoying running his hands over the firm muscles in his chest and arms and back and ass. He stopped momentarily when Casey’s soap-slick hand reached his cock - his brain shorted out he heard himself groan, and then whimper when Casey withdrew. Bobby barely had time to draw breath before Casey grabbed his hips and ground them into his own, making them both cry out. He walked them both back into the spray, letting the water wash away the bubbles, kissing as they went. MacCready didn’t think his skin had ever felt so clean or his dick so hard.

 

Casey turned them both around so that Bobby’s back was to the wall and sidestepped so that they were just out of the spray from the shower. He knelt before him, pressing hot kisses to the skin of his hips and working his way slowly inward. His stubble brushed Bobby’s cock and made him gasp, but more from surprise than discomfort. After what felt like hours of slow kissing and teasing, Casey bent his head and took the length of him into his mouth.

 

It was hot and slick and perfect - Bobby could hardly breathe. His hips were moving by themselves, even with Casey’s hands holding them firm. Casey pulled his head back until just the tip of Bobby’s cock sat behind his lips, and did something unbelievable with his tongue.

 

“Ha… haa-ah…” He twined his fingers into Casey’s hair, trying to remember not to pull it, and then Casey was cupping his balls with one hand, kneading them softly as he worked his mouth. Bobby almost cracked his head against the wall.

 

“Mmmm… Wait, Case, slow down,” he said, and almost regretted it when Casey slowly pulled off. His dick twitched, slick with saliva and shower water and pre-come.

 

“You okay?” Casey asked, and kissed his thigh, rubbing firm, reassuring hands over his hips and ass.

 

“Yeah, just… Don’t wanna come yet,” said Bobby, and squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard. “You’re really fuh… Really good at that,”he said, with a quirk of his lips.

 

“I think you’re allowed to curse in the bedroom,” said Casey, amused, his words brushing Bobby’s thigh. “Or the bathroom,” he amended.

 

“Can you teach me how?” Bobby asked, after a moment.

 

“To curse?”

 

“No, bonehead, how to suck a dick,” said Bobby, laughing now.

 

Casey grinned. “Oh! Sure, if you want to,” he said. Bobby nodded, surprised at how much he _did_ want to. Not so long ago he would never have imagined himself doing that except maybe out of desperate necessity, and yet here he was. Life was full of surprises, and not all of them bad.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay. Let’s switch places, and you can cool off a little.” The floor of the shower was uncomfortable and hurt his knees, but he barely noticed. As he knelt in front of Casey, it occurred to him that there might be a problem.

 

“Um… I don’t know if I can… uh… fit it all,” he said, worried suddenly, but Casey grinned and petted his hair.

 

“You don’t have to, don’t worry,” he reassured him. “There’s ways.”

 

Bobby nodded, trusting him. “Okay.” He took hold of Casey’s cock and gave it a few quick strokes.

 

“Mmm, yeah, good start,” said Casey appreciatively. “A little tighter, maybe… Yeah, like that… Use your other hand to cup my balls… Mmhmm…”

 

“Like that?”

 

“Yeah, perfect. Okay, now when you’re ready, keep stroking the shaft, and put just the tip in your mouth and suck it gently like a popsicle - mind your teeth though - ah, _fuck -_ Bobby - uhhh… Some guys like a little teeth but I’m not - oh! - Not one of them… Oh God, that thing you’re d… doing with your tongue… Keep doing it - ohhhh…”

 

This was easier than he’d thought, he was realising. He’d received precious few blow jobs in his life, and would have been grateful with anything, but it meant he didn’t really know what he liked. Which in turn meant he didn’t know what would please someone else, but Casey’s instruction and feedback more than made up for Bobby’s inexperience.

 

“Okay, go a little bit further down the shaft… Not too far. Yeah… Mmmm… No, don’t take your hand away, you’re gonna need that. Use it like an extension of your mouth, to - oh God, Bobby, _yeah_ , like that…”

 

He had been concentrating so hard on what he was doing that his own erection had started to wane a little; but as Casey moaned and gasped and clutched at his hair, Bobby could feel it growing hotter and heavier between his legs again. They settled into a rhythm as Bobby got used to the sensation and the taste and the movements, and tried to take a little more of Casey’s length into his mouth with each push forward. His jaw began to ache a little after a while, so he pulled off and began to lick and kiss his way up and down the shaft the way Casey had done. Casey blew out a breath and smirked lazily.

 

“You don’t need me to teach you, you’re a natural,” he said.

 

Bobby grinned. “Uh, thanks?”

 

“You want me to warn you before I come?”

 

“I think I’ll probably be able to tell,” said Bobby. “But yeah, okay.” He popped the head of Casey’s dick between his lips, and tried to emulate the tongue thing Casey had done for him earlier.

 

“Unnnhhhhhh…” said Casey, and Bobby grinned around his dick when he heard Casey’s head hit the wall. Now that he’d rested his jaw a little he began to move as he had before, with one hand stroking the shaft in front of his lips. He could tell Casey was trying hard not to thrust into his mouth, and sped up the pace a little; before long Casey was moaning on every outward breath.

 

“Ohhhh… God, Bobby… Mmmmm… I - I’m gonna… Mmmm, Bobby, I’m gonna come - Ah - ”

 

Casey tried to pull out of his mouth, but Bobby grabbed his hip and held him where he was - Casey’s come hit the roof of his mouth and he swallowed, again and again as Casey bit the back of his hand to keep from crying out.

 

He pulled away carefully, knowing how sensitive Casey would be now, but even so he gave a shudder as his dick slipped from Bobby’s lips. He grinned as he pulled him to his feet to kiss him, humming as he tasted himself in Bobby’s mouth.

 

“‘Teach me’, he says,” said Casey. “You sure you’ve never done that before? First timers don’t usually wanna swallow, in my experience. _I_ didn’t.”

 

Bobby shrugged, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Show me a guy who’s never eaten his own come,” he said. “What’s so different about someone else’s?”

 

Casey laughed at this. “True enough,” he said. “Your turn.” He knelt in front of him, and tapped the inside of his ankles until he moved his feet further apart; Bobby looked at him and blinked.

 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” said Casey softly, running a hand up the inside of his thigh, kissing it and making him shiver. Bobby shook his head, and then nodded.

 

“No, I do, it’s okay,” he clarified. Casey grinned.

 

“Okay.”

 

Bobby gasped as Casey’s fingers brushed his aching cock. His head fell back and hit the wall, and he groaned. Casey’s lips left a trail of fire on his water-slick skin, and his hands roamed all over Bobby’s legs and hips and ass. Slowly, Casey kissed his way to the base of Bobby’s dick, just as he brushed the crack of his ass with one finger - Bobby had to bite his lip to keep from coming. He didn’t think he’d ever been this turned on in his life. Casey’s finger kept moving, brushing back and forth, gradually working its way between his cheeks.

 

“Is that okay?” He asked.

 

“Yeah… _fuck_ …”

 

Casey hummed a laugh. “Hey, pass me that shower gel,” he said, his words ghosting over Bobby’s balls and making him shiver. Bobby did as he was told, fumbling with the bottle for a moment before he could make his slick hands grip it properly and pass it over. Casey flipped open the cap and poured some of the gel onto his fingers.

 

Bobby gasped as the finger returned and a hand grasped his dick, giving it a few rough strokes. Casey pressed a kiss to one testicle then sucked it into his mouth, tonguing it gently and letting it back out with a little pop. The finger pressed closer to him, and as it brushed over his hole, Bobby had to grip the hand Casey had wrapped around his dick and stop it moving. Casey grinned.

 

“Wow, you really do like that,” he murmured, pressing gentle kisses at the very top of Bobby’s inner thigh. “Fuck, I could drown in you.”

 

Casey had ruined him; he was a shaking, sweating mess, and the guy had barely touched him yet. With relief, he realised Casey was bringing it back down a notch, giving him a breather. He continued to kiss his hips and thighs, but kept away from his dick for a moment. He picked up one of Bobby’s hands and put it on his head with a grin. Bobby curled his fingers through Casey’s wet hair, let his eyes drift closed, and smiled.

 

After a few moments of just gentle petting, Casey began to slowly kiss his way back up Bobby’s thigh. “Are you ready?” He murmured between kisses.

 

“Mmm. Yeah,” said Bobby, and Casey hummed a laugh in response and reached for the shower gel again.

 

“Okay.” He squeezed Bobby’s hip as he moved back up, kissing and licking much more slowly this time. His freshly gel-slicked finger returned, but he kept away from Bobby’s dick for now. He moved the finger back and forth across his hole, circling it and pressing gently, blowing little puffs of amusement through his nose at each groan of pleasure that tore from Bobby’s throat. Eventually he eased just the tip inside through the ring of muscle, pressing a kiss to his inner thigh at the same time - Bobby hissed in a breath and clutched at the the wall behind him with both hands, fingers scrabbling at it.

 

It felt a little like when he did this himself, only he had no idea what Casey was going to do - every move was unexpected, which only heightened the sensations. Casey moved slowly at first, drawing gasps and moans with each crook of his finger, each slow, gentle push further inside. After a moment Bobby realised he must be further inside than he had ever managed by himself - the thought scared him a little, but his trust in Casey was near-absolute and he knew Casey would never hurt him. Casey began a slow rhythm after a while, just in and out, not pushing for more, each drag of his finger sending shocks of sharp pleasure up Bobby’s spine. His other hand had been rubbing Bobby’s inner thigh, getting slowly higher and higher, and now began to brush up and down his cock.

 

“You leak a _lot_ , don’t you?” Casey asked softly, as the movement slicked pre-come all over his hand and Bobby’s dick.

 

“Mmmm…” Bobby managed. Words were beyond him at this point. As he watched, Casey lowered his head and circled the tip of his cock with his lips, forming a slight vacuum with his mouth and letting it pop out again. His tongue darted out and licked away the pre-come he’d drawn out, and he lowered his head again, taking Bobby right into his mouth, no hands.

 

It was like nothing he’d ever felt before - between Casey’s mouth and throat swallowing around him, and the finger in his ass, no amount of thinking about Mirelurk chunks was going to help him now. He gasped in a breath - he didn’t mean to let it out in a cry, but there was no helping it. The sound tore brokenly from his lips. This was it; Bobby was going to die. He could hear himself whimpering, and there was nothing he could do about it.

 

“Case… Ceh… I can’t…”Casey shifted on his knees and continued, speeding his pace a little at a time until Bobby was practically sobbing, bent forward over Casey’s head, a broken cry on each out breath. His orgasm came surprisingly slowly, drawn along a little further with each beat of Casey’s rhythm, and went on and on and _on_ until Bobby’s mind whited out, all conscious thought gone.

 

He came to himself slowly, one hand on Casey’s shoulder and the other braced against the wall to the side, and Casey pressing slow, firm kisses to the side of his hip.

 

“You okay? Thought I’d lost you for a minute there.” He spoke lightly, rubbing and squeezing the meat of Bobby’s ass with one hand, holding him up with the other arm wrapped around his thigh.

 

“Yeah,” said Bobby, and realised he was still panting. “Holy _shit_ , Case.” Casey laughed.

 

“I gotta say, I’ve had some pretty incredible sex in my time, but that was right up there,” he said. “I thought you were never gonna stop coming.”

 

“So did I,” said Bobby, with a shaky laugh. “What the hell did you _do_ to me?”

 

Casey shrugged, clearly proud of himself. “What can I say. Maybe it was all the stress from this morning, but I prefer to think it’s just my phenomenal skill as a lover.” He released Bobby’s leg slowly, making sure his knees weren’t going to buckle from underneath him, and got to his feet. “So what do you think of showers?” He asked, kissing Bobby’s wet hair.

 

As far as Bobby was concerned, showers were the single best thing ever invented and he said so. Casey smiled.

 

“Well, people used to use them for washing as well as elaborate sex toys, so shall we wash up and take a nap?”

 

“Sure. I better get this shower gel out of my ass or I’ll be farting bubbles for a week,” said Bobby, surprised when Casey creased up at this, his head dropping to Bobby’s shoulder and his own shoulders shaking with laughter. Bobby hadn’t thought it was _that_ funny, but his heart skipped a little watching Casey helpless like this, and he couldn’t help a fond smile. A thought floated into his mind as he ran his hands over Casey’s back, in spite of the current topic of conversation.

 

_I think I love you_.

 

“Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘bubble butt’,” said Casey wiping his eyes, when he’d recovered enough to speak; he had clearly been cooking that one up since he’d seen the stuff on the shelf. “Well, come on, cowboy, let’s use this thing for its intended purpose.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so if you haven’t seen Matthew Mercer doing the hot pepper gaming review, go watch it on YouTube. It will give you a clue as to some of the noises MacCready was making in the last part of this chapter. ;) (Not that I rewatched it just for this.) (Honest.) (Well okay maybe a little.) (Twice.) (It’s a little disappointing how well he keeps it together.)


	13. Rosie on My Chest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I find myself fallin' for some girl, I hop right into that car of mine and drive around the world, with my two fists of iron but I'm goin' nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm sorry... There's a lot going on for me right now! I've got a couple of chapters ready to go and an end in sight, if you're still here thank you so much for sticking with me. I'm also hoping to update Divergent Behaviour soon, if you're into a bit of Dansie Pants, I've not been able to post that even though it's mostly written because there are spoilers for Mister In-Between for things that haven't happened yet! 
> 
> If you are still here, thank you, you are the best, I love you a lot :)

The synth returned and woke them both up about an hour or so after they got out of the shower, and led them back to Shaun’s personal quarters. X6 retreated as they sat down, and stood guard by the door. Bobby couldn’t help but glance back over his shoulder at it from time to time - the synth was so still that he wondered if it had gone into standby mode or something. It was hard to tell through the thing’s sunglasses.

 

“I trust your quarters are comfortable?” Shaun asked as they sat down. If he was in any way aware of how his father and MacCready had spent their time in there, he gave no hint of it.

 

“Yeah, the proverbial gilded cage,” Casey said. Shaun pursed his lips.

 

“I’ve already explained,” he said quietly. “It simply isn’t safe outside of the Institute, father. The Gunners are looking for both of you.”

 

“And how do you know that?”

 

Shaun leaned back in his chair. “I told you, I have eyebots all over the Commonwealth.”

 

“Can we access them?” Bobby asked, refusing to wilt under Casey’s sudden furious glare. “See what they’re seeing?” Shaun turned an appraising gaze on him.

 

“You see, father?” He asked. “You should follow Mister MacCready’s example. It’s the logical course of action. To answer, of course. I can grant you access to the monitors so that you can see what’s going on out there. You can even control the eyebots remotely.”

 

“No,” said Casey stubbornly. “We don’t need ‘em.”

 

The door slid open and a man appeared with a tray loaded with large, clean-looking fruits and meat. As he put a platter down in the center of the table, Bobby realised he was probably a synth, and his skin tried to crawl off away from the thing. X6 hadn’t moved an inch.

 

“Case, come on,” he said, with one nervous eye on the synth as it moved around the table. “It’s really stupid not to use this stuff. it’s right there.”

 

“Bobby,” said Casey with a definite warning note in his voice. “No thanks,” he said to Shaun, plucking a too-perfect grape from the bunch on the platter, and popping it into his mouth. “Just send us back.”

 

Shaun leaned back in his chair, with an annoyed sigh. “Father, I am trying to help you,” he said.

 

“If you think I’ll accept it, you’re crazier than I thought you were.”

 

Shaun frowned, considering. When he spoke, it was with a resigned tone. “If you really do insist on throwing yourself into mortal danger, I suppose I can’t stop you. Where do you wish to go?”

 

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Somewhere to the South. How about University Point? You’ve got a bunch of your robits out that way, right? Should be pretty easy to get out of the Commonwealth from there.”

 

“ _Out_ of the Commonwealth? You sound as though you’ve given up, Father,” said Shaun, leaning forward again. Casey shrugged, popping another grape into his mouth. Bobby stared at him.

 

“Case! Are you serious?” He asked. Casey rounded on him.

 

“Look, Bobby, they’ve won. What’s it matter? Everybody’s probably dead, I don’t see why we should get ourselves killed too. Let’s get the fuck out of this bullshit. We’ll go south, maybe Florida. I hear it’s lovely this time of year.”

 

“You’re just going to abandon them all?!” Bobby couldn’t believe what he was hearing - in fact he didn’t believe it at all, Casey was clearly working on something. MacCready worried that Shaun could see it too, but he played along anyway. “After everything, you just want to up and leave? What if some of them survived, what if Baker was lying about getting all of the settlements? Don’t you wanna help them?”

 

“You heard Baker. It’s over. _You_ want to get away from the Gunners, right? Florida sounds like a pretty good bet to me. Nothing left for us here.” He shrugged, and gestured around himself.

 

“Case…”

 

“So, University Point? That’ll skip most of the bullshit and we can go south from there. That okay with you, Shaun? If what Baker said is true, he’ll have most of his men up north, and we can skirt by Quincy without too much trouble.”

 

Shaun had been watching them both in silence, his eyes narrow. “If you wish,” he said slowly. “You’ve changed your mind awfully quickly, Father. The last time we spoke, you seemed determined to go back to the Commonwealth, to ‘fix this mess’. Besides, I doubt the rest of the United States is in much better shape than the Commonwealth.”

 

“I’ve had time to think. I know when I’m beaten, okay? Don’t rub it in. This world is a piece of shit, I’ve given everything I had to make it better and I’ve had it thrown back in my face. I’m done. I’ll take my chances somewhere else.” He threw himself back into his chair and stared at the table, looking empty-eyed and defeated. Bobby watched him, worried, but said nothing.

 

“Very well,” said Shaun slowly. “If that’s what you want, I can’t stop you. I’ll have you sent to University Point then. I suppose there’s no point in keeping you here, if you insist on leaving the Commonwealth. You’re right, it’s probably better to go now while there are so few Gunners in Quincy.”

 

“Great,” said Casey, standing. “Let’s do this.”

 

Shaun stood too. “Before you go, I just want you to know that I deeply regret the way things have turned out. I would have loved to have had you at my side here at the Institute, father. And, should you ever wish to return, know that you will be welcomed with open arms.”

 

“There’s not enough caps in the world.” MacCready tried to imagine what would need to happen for him to say something similar to Duncan, but it made his heart hurt and he pushed it away with a pang of sympathy for Casey.

 

“Then I wish you a safe journey to Florida. X6, if you please.” The synth stood forward and held out its hands; Casey took it by the upper arm. “Goodbye, father,” said Shaun. “I wish things could have been different.” Bobby hesitated, but followed Casey in silence and took X6’s other arm, and the world went white.

 

~*~

 

“Casey, what the hell,” said Bobby quietly, picking himself up off the ground as X6 disappeared in another flash of white light.

 

“I know what I’m doing,” said Casey. “Come on. And don’t say anything else, not here.”

 

He led them toward the building, but instead of going inside, went to one of the windows to the right of the main door. Checking around them first, he went to his knees and began running his hands over the wall. Bobby watched, saying nothing. After a moment Casey seemed to find what he was looking for, and began to dig his fingers into the crumbling mortar between the bricks; inch by inch, he pulled one out.

 

“Heh heh heh.” He reached inside and pulled out a large bag, dragging it out and dumping it on the ground. He caught Bobby’s eye and jerked his chin at it - curious, Bobby went over and opened it while Casey replaced the brick. Inside were some guns, ammo, a large bag of what seemed to be caps, and a couple of Stealth-Boys.

 

“Did you leave this here?” he asked, a little awed.

 

“Nah, Railroad cache,” Casey explained. “Deacon showed me how to read the signs. What do we have?”

 

Bobby showed him the Stealth-Boys, and pulled out the guns - a ten mil, not silenced, and a .38 pipe rifle. Shitty, but it would have to do. Baker still had all of their stuff, Bobby remembered, with a pang. Once he got his beloved rifle back, he made a vow to himself that he would shoot Baker with it.

 

“Perfect. Better than I could have hoped for, in fact. Well, the rifle’s yours,” said Casey, reaching for the ten mil. “Don’t use it unless it’s absolutely necessary. Take the caps, too.”

 

“All right, what are we really doing?” Bobby asked in a low voice. “I had a feeling you weren’t serious about Florida, but I gotta tell you, I think Shaun knew it too. You’re the guy who went into the _Glowing Sea_ to find him, you really think he’ll believe that a few Gunners are enough to make you give up on the Minutemen?”

 

“Of course he didn’t believe it. Anyway, shut up, this place is crawling with synths. I don’t want any of them reporting back to Daddy. Hold my hand and use the Stealth-Boy.”

 

MacCready cocked an eyebrow at him. “Romantic getaway. I’m down.”

 

Casey grinned. “So we don’t lose each other,” he explained. “Not that I mind getting to hold hands with you, of course.”

 

Bobby had a feeling that Casey meant to make for the Castle, though if the Gunners already had it, it would be impossible for the two of them to take it back alone. Maybe he was counting on the fact that they would have taken the bulk of their forces up to Sanctuary, and that it would be lightly guarded? If he was hoping to sneak in, then Bobby hoped he knew where there would be another cache of Stealth-Boys before they got there. Having defended the place he knew how hard it would be to sneak up on, and the Gunners did too by now. He stowed the shitty rifle in his coat and took Casey’s hand, pressing the button on his Stealth-Boy as instructed, and let Casey lead him away.

 

~*~

 

“I do not understand, Father,” said X6, once he’d flashed back into Shaun’s quarters. “Why not simply have me take them to Sanctuary, as Sergeant Baker requested?”

 

Shaun leaned back in his chair. “My father is a hard-headed man, and I doubt I could have convinced him to go right to Sanctuary if he didn’t want to,” he replied. “And if I had promised to send them to University Point and had you take them directly to Sanctuary, he would have known something was not right. I am trying to gain his trust; a little deception now will be worth it in the future, I’m sure I will be able to make him see that once I can get him here on a more permanent basis. Get me Baker, will you? He will need to know where they are, and that he has a little more time to prepare. And have the synths at University Point follow my father and Mr. MacCready, and report back to me directly. I sincerely doubt that they will be leaving the Commonwealth, never mind going to Florida.”

 

~*~

 

From the direction of the sun, he thought they were probably heading north rather than south out of the Commonwealth, which lent weight to his idea that Casey might be making for the Castle. They passed an eyebot or two, even though they were staying off the main roads, and whenever one floated by Casey stilled even though they were invisible. He clearly wasn’t taking any chances, not now that he knew the eyebots belonged to Shaun.

 

When they got to the point where they would have turned east to go out toward the Castle, however, Casey continued to lead them north; it wasn’t long after that that the effects of the Stealth-Boys wore off. Fortunately by that time it was beginning to get dark. Casey pulled Bobby behind a tree away from the road.

 

“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We don’t have time to do everything together so we’re gonna split up, okay? It’ll be easier to stay hidden that way too.”

 

“Casey…” said Bobby dubiously.

 

Casey ignored him. “You remember where the Railroad is from here? I need you to go to them. Deacon should be there, he knows you. Talk to Desdemona, tell her we need the Railroad to run interference for us. We need to stop the Gunners reaching Sanctuary, or at least slow them down, and also find out how many of the settlements really are under Gunner control. How she does it is up to her, but tell her I’ve got some important intel about a place to the north east of the Commonwealth that she’ll be pretty interested in if she helps us. Tell her they’ll be happy to accept packages, and lots of ‘em. She’ll know what that means.”

 

“What if she refuses?”

 

Casey made a face. “I hope she won’t,” he said. “I’ve helped them out a lot with some pretty important stuff, if she wants to keep me as an agent I’m hoping she’ll do this. If she really does refuse, then tell her I’ll help them take out the Institute for good if she’ll do it. All in, no more stalling. I’m done with wondering if every person I meet is a synth spying on me. And if she still refuses… See if Deacon will help. I know he’s gone off mission before, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him.”

 

“Casey…” Something was bothering MacCready greatly. “Are you sure? About destroying the Institute, I mean. Shaun might be an assh - a jerk, but he’s still your _son_. If you destroy that place you’ll probably kill him. I know, I know,” he added, holding up his hands as Casey opened his mouth, face darkening with anger. “It’s not my place. But I care about you, and you already know that I’m with you whatever you decide, but I can’t watch you do something you might regret without at least saying something.”

 

Casey sighed, and the anger drained from him, dropping his shoulders. “Bobby… I don’t wanna say that you have no idea what I’m going through, but you have _no idea_ what I’m going through,” he said, without a trace of the anger that had been writ large on his features only moments ago. He sounded tired. Sad. “ _I_ barely even know what I’m going through. But I meant what I said about that man not being my son. About how my son…” He swallowed. “My son died the day he was kidnapped. This guy, Father or whatever he calls himself, he’s not my son. He’s a fucking menace. He might think he’s doing what’s best for the Commonwealth, but what he’s really doing is creating more fear and suspicion in a place that already has way too much of that. He wants to sterilise this place by killing everyone he thinks is no good, and why the fuck should _he_ get to decide who lives and who dies? No, if he gets his way, it’ll mean death or worse for most of the people here and I can’t let him do that. He’s not going to give up until someone stops him, and the only way to do that is to kill him. And the only one who has even a shot at killing him, is me. I understand that you have a father-son bond yourself, and the fact that you care enough about me to bring this up… Well, it means more to me than you know. But my relationship with Shaun could not be more different to yours with Duncan.”

 

“You really don’t think you can change his mind about what he’s doing?” Bobby asked, without much hope. Casey closed his eyes.

 

“I might have, once. Until he called Gwen’s death ‘collateral damage’ to my face. That’s when I knew I couldn’t save him. If that’s how he views his own mother’s death, imagine what he thinks about the deaths of others. No, he’s too far corrupted by the Institute; he’s been beyond saving for most of his life now. I’ve been putting off thinking about it, but… Once this is done, I know now that I have to deal with Shaun.”

 

MacCready wanted to say that he was sorry, that he wished desperately that there could have been another way out of this, but he’d said it all before. Saying it again now would be meaningless. Trite. Instead he slipped his hand into Casey’s and squeezed it. _I’m here. I hate that you’re hurting, and if I could make it go away I’d do it without a second thought_. Casey squeezed back, with a sad smile. 

 

“Well, I guess we still have the Gunners to deal with first,” MacCready said, after a moment. “So I’m going to the Railroad, what are you gonna do?” Casey grinned.

 

“It’s probably better that I don’t tell you,” he said simply. “Let’s just say I have a few favors I can call in. Just go to the Railroad, and get Deacon and Desdemona to help. If you can, get Deacon to go back up to Sanctuary with you. You know the river that runs around it? Try to hit it as far to the South of Sanctuary as you can, about halfway between there and Sunshine, and follow it until you find the cabin. It’s just north of the Abernathy’s and a ways west. I’ll meet you there. Use Stealth-Boys if you can once you get near, and avoid Sanctuary itself. Avoid _all_ the settlements, really, I want you to get there in one piece.”

 

“Okay,” said Bobby. “How long will you be?”

 

Casey shrugged. “Not long, twenty-four hours or so. At most. If I don’t show up it means my plan isn’t going to work, in which case I’ll meet you at the chapel south of Sunshine and we’ll rethink.”

 

Bobby nodded. He hated not knowing where Casey was going to be, or how he could find out where he was if something went wrong. “Casey… I hate to say it, but isn’t it a little late for all this? I’m pretty sure the Gunners are at Sanctuary already.”

 

“We just have to hope they’re waiting for more of their guys to show up from the other settlements before they move,” Casey sighed. “Or that Preston has managed to get everyone out safely. I know it’s a long shot but we have to do _something_.”

 

Bobby nodded. “Okay.”

 

“Try to avoid being seen if it’s at all possible, and whatever you do, hide from the eyebots,” Casey warned him.

 

“I know,” said Bobby. “And the synths. Hey… Be careful, okay?” He squeezed Casey’s hand again. Casey’s eyes softened.

 

“You too. I’ll see you soon. Oh, and Bobby?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I love you.”

 

Of all the things he’d been expecting him to say, that wasn’t one of them. Bobby blinked, and his heart gave a little skip. “I - I love you too,” he managed. Casey gave a little laugh.

 

“You sound surprised,” he said.

 

“Well, I am, a little,” Bobby confessed. “It hasn’t been all that long.”

 

“I know, but… I’ve known for a while, if I’m honest. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to spring that on you before you were ready, I just didn’t know if…”

 

“Don’t finish that thought,” said Bobby firmly, squeezing his hand. “I’ll meet you outside Sanctuary like we planned, and if it all goes wrong we’ll go back to the Railroad and talk about taking out the Institute instead. Maybe we can get the Gunners after that, I don’t know. And… I _do_ love you, by the way, I didn’t just say it because you did.”

 

Casey smiled. “I know.” He leaned down and kissed him, softly, brushing Bobby’s cheek with his thumb. “Be careful.”

 

“I will, I promise.”

 

“All right. I’ll see you tomorrow, Bubble-butt.” He smacked MacCready’s ass, with a cheeky grin. MacCready shook his head and sighed.

 

“Fine, just not in front of people, okay?”

 

~*~


	14. Train Train (woo woo)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We heard the boom, boom, it was a horrible sound, and then the gloom, gloom, we went underground, so throw yourself a party wherever you're at, until the train train is ready to climb again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here have two chapters in one day! Also I have no idea how radios work

Shaun couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been this angry. “What do you mean you lost them, X6,” he asked, his voice far calmer than he felt.

 

“I’m sorry, Father. The synths at University Point are not equipped with software sensitive enough to detect stealth technology, and were unable to track them.”

 

Shaun pinched the bridge of his nose. “For the want of a nail. Get me Baker,” he instructed. “And find my father. Comb the entire Quincy and South Boston area, and pay special attention to the area around the Castle. Baker will be most displeased if my Father finds out it’s not under Gunner control. When he is found, do not engage but track and report back to me immediately.”

 

~*~

 

He kept low and in the shadows as much as he could, and froze the instant he saw anything move. Straining his eyes and ears for any sign of anything, he slowly made his way north into Boston. There were muties and raiders all over this spot on the map, and a little further north was a Gunner outpost he would have to skirt around. He thought briefly about heading to Goodneighbor, see if he could get anything in the way of protection for the caps Casey had given him from the Railroad cache, but decided against it. It would take too long, and he risked being spotted. He’d seen Gunners not far from Goodneighbor before.

 

Rather than follow the more direct route into town, he stuck closer to the water. After one or two hairy moments with a mirelurk or two, and then turning inland to avoid the Gunners, he finally made it to the Old North Church. Checking quickly to make sure he hadn’t been followed, he pushed open the door, closed it carefully behind himself and snuck down through the church and down the stairs to the Railroad.

 

When he pushed open the door to the Headquarters, the sound of twenty guns cocking stopped him in his tracks, and he threw his hands into the air out of reflex while his brain caught up. But he’d been here before! Didn’t they recognise him?

 

“Woah, woah, woah,” said a voice up ahead, and Deacon walked out in front of the other agents, his hands up, and stood in front of MacCready. “Chill out, guys, it’s just Mac. Where’s the love?”

 

“Where’s Charmer?” Desdemona demanded, not lowering her gun. “Why isn’t he with you?” Glory stood next to her, sneering at MacCready. Her expression was somehow scarier than the minigun she held pointed right at his face.

 

“He had to go do something else,” said MacCready from behind Deacon. “I swear, I’m not here to do anything bad. Would I have just walked in here like an idiot if I was?”

 

“It would be a good tactic,” said Desdemona dryly.

 

“Look, Case - uh, Charmer needs your help,” said MacCready, hoping that if he could say his piece before she blew his head off, then maybe he might convince her he wasn’t here to turn them in to the Institute. “The Gunners’re wiping out all the Minuteman settlements.”

 

“And that’s our problem how?”

 

“Dez, come on,” said Deacon. “Hear him out, at least.”

 

“Look,” said MacCready. “I have one gun on me, the Gunners took everything else. Take it.” He held his hands up higher, and pointed at the spot in his duster where he’d stowed the rifle. “Please. Pat me down, do a strip search, I don’t care.”

 

“See, Dez? How can you turn down an offer like that,” said Deacon, even as he reached for the gun. MacCready let him take it, and stood there while Deacon patted him down, and refrained from making any comments about it - surprising, for him.

 

“Clean as a clean thing in clean town,” he said after a moment. “Aside from all the dirt. Now can we hear him out? Charmer has proved himself, and he trusts this little guy. And from what I know of him, Mac here is more interested in protecting his kid and staying close to Charmer than ratting us out to the Institute. And if it’s Gunners, this guy has a good reason to hate ‘em.”

 

“How do you know all that?” MacCready couldn’t stop himself asking. “How do you know about my son?” Deacon grinned, his expression implacable behind his sunglasses.

 

“Just doing my job. Relax, I’m good at keeping secrets.”

 

“Deacon, this might not even be the real MacCready. Have you forgotten _all_ of your training?” Desdemona asked, obviously exasperated.

 

“I’m not a synth, I swear!” Even as he said it, MacCready knew it was as pointless as every other time he’d heard that phrase. “Scan my head, do whatever you want, you won’t find anything.”

 

“Besides,” Deacon added, “if the Institute sent him, if he’s a synth, then it’s already way too late. They know where we are.”

 

“Full disclosure, I just came from there,” said MacCready, hands still in the air even though most everyone had lowered their guns by now. Not Glory, though. “We didn’t go there by choice, and we made sure we weren’t followed once we left.” Desdemona glared at him for a long moment, during which he really wasn’t sure what she would do - hear him out, throw him out or take him out.

 

“Just know that I will shoot you myself if I find out you _were_ followed. Better yet I’ll let Glory do it. Put your hands down,” she said finally. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning and don’t leave out a single thing. Let _me_ decide what’s important and what isn’t. And do yourself a favor and don’t lie to me. About anything. I’m not saying we’ll help you, but I will hear you out.”

 

~*~

 

She let him talk for about an hour, with only occasional interruptions to ask questions or offer him cigarettes or coffee, and he told her and Deacon everything he knew. Even after Desdemona’s warning not to leave anything out, he still felt a lot less like he was under a microscope than he had at the Institute. Though Glory was not part of the conversation, MacCready was painfully aware of her presence - she stood not far away, minigun at her side, watching him like a hawk the entire time.

 

“And what exactly does Charmer want us to do?” Desdemona asked at last.

 

“He asked if you could run some interference,” MacCready told her. “Slow the Gunners down until he can get to Sanctuary, and do whatever it is he’s planning.” Deacon grinned, rubbing his hands together with glee.

 

“Mmm, interference. My favorite.”

 

“He says he has some valuable information on the Institute, and someplace you can send all the packages you want,” said MacCready. “He found his son, but it’s not what he… Well, it’s complicated. Let’s just say he wants to take ‘em down, and he’ll help you do it. No more stalling.”

 

Desdemona nodded slowly. “Sounds good to me. I’ll talk to him more about it later. Interference, huh? Should be easy enough,” she said. “The Gunners use radios, right? Fairly simple to hack, get a few conflicting messages out. Anything else?”

 

“He needs to know if all the settlements really are gone,” said MacCready. “I’m pretty sure Baker was lying, but he might not have been. If there’s any still left, the settlers might be able to help us fight back.”

 

“Well, the only way to know for sure without tipping the Gunners off would be to go look, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that for all of the settlements,” said Desdemona. MacCready nodded; It was no more than he had expected. “Unless they’re stupid enough to use the Minutemen’s radio frequencies in the settlements they’ve taken,” Desdemona added. MacCready doubted they _were_ stupid enough for that.

 

“Does Baker know that you and Charmer’re sleeping together?” Deacon asked, matter-of-factly, and took a sip of his coffee. MacCready flushed. He hadn’t mentioned that, thinking it too private, and unrelated anyway. Desdemona frowned at him.

 

“Dammit MacCready, I told you not to leave anything out,” she said, clearly annoyed. “Well, _does_ Baker know?”

 

“Wh… Yeah, he does. How do _you_ know about that?”

 

Deacon smirked. “I didn’t for sure, ’til just now.” Damn him.

 

“Well, he’s probably going to try to use that against you,” Desdemona observed, ignoring Deacon. “This is why I told you to tell me _everything_ , MacCready. I know it’s personal, but it’s the kind of thing that can make all the difference.”

 

“He’s already planning to use it against us,” MacCready told her, remembering what Baker had said about how sweet it would be knowing that hurting him, MacCready, would hurt Casey more.

 

“Hmm. Not exactly surprising. Maybe we can figure out a way to use it against _them_. Okay. Also, Deacon mentioned your son,” said Desdemona. “Do the Gunners know about him?”

 

“Not that I know,” said MacCready, still glaring at Deacon, who smiled beatifically back. “I never trusted them enough to tell them about Duncan.”

 

“Good. Where is he?”

 

“Not in the Commonwealth.” If she thought he was going to tell her where Duncan was, she could think again - not even the threat of Glory could scare him into giving that up. To his surprise, she smiled.

 

“Good,” she said again. “Let’s not mention him again until all this is over. Okay. Interference. You ever work the radio for the Gunners?”

 

MacCready shook his head. “No, but I know their call signs. And the frequencies they use.”

 

“That’s a start. All right, let’s go and talk to Tinker Tom.”

 

~*~

 

MacCready had always liked Tinker Tom; he didn’t care to know the first thing about what he did, but his enthusiasm for his work was infectious. When Desdemona told him what she needed, he laughed aloud with glee.

 

“Heh-hey, all right! Okay, tell me the frequency, let’s listen in for a while,” he said, going to his radio setup. MacCready adjusted the dial for him; there was nothing but static.

 

“You sure this is it?” Tom asked him. MacCready nodded.

 

“Unless they’ve changed it.”

 

“Or _encrypted_ it,” said Tom, his face lighting up. He turned to his terminal and tapped away on his keyboard, frowning at the screen. “Hmm… Yeah, slippery… I’ll getcha… Nope, nope… Come on baby, don’t do me like this… Gimme that sweet sweet code… Aaaaaaand - ”

 

He stood back, holding his hands up away from the keyboard. “If any person here present knows of any reason why we shouldn’t eavesdrop on these motherfuckers speak now or forever hold your bits and pieces…”

 

They waited.

 

And waited.

 

Then, finally:

 

“Tango Delta, this is Alpha Mike, do you read.”

 

“Haha!” Yelled Tom, and punched the air.

 

“Alpha Mike, this is Tango Delta. I read you, what’s the word?”

 

“Blood leaf. Blood leaf. Be advised, dirty water headed your way from the south.”

 

Desdemona looked at MacCready. “What’s that mean?”

 

“‘Dirty water’ means a rad storm. No idea what ‘blood leaf’ is, though.” Tinker Tom nodded, and began scribbling everything down.

 

She frowned. “Hmm. Maybe it’s a code word, confirming identity.” The radio crackled again.

 

“Thank you Alpha Mike, anything else?”

 

“Negative, negative. It’s a big one, though. Cats and dogs here in Cambridge.” 

 

“Fuck, Danny, come on man! Never reveal your location!”

 

“Relax, asshole, we’re encrypted,” came the reply. Deacon snorted.

 

“Not any more, buddy,” he said.

 

“If Baker finds out about this…” Tango Delta continued.

 

“Listen, if Baker finds out about this, I’ll make sure he finds out you said his _name_ on the radio.”

 

“You just said it too, shithead!”

 

“What a charming bunch,” said Desdemona. “Tom, keep monitoring. See if you can find out what ‘blood leaf’ means, pick out any other code words. Maybe more will reveal a pattern.”

 

Tom saluted. “Yes ma’am,” he said, with great enthusiasm.

 

“MacCready, you listen in too. You at least know some of what we’re listening for.”

 

He nodded. “Sure thing.”

 

~*~

 

He and Tom listened for a while, MacCready explaining the meanings of the code words he knew, and Tom scribbling everything down as they went. In addition to call signs, locations and code words, they also got a good bit about troop movements toward Sanctuary. From what they were hearing, he decided it was likely that Baker had been lying; he didn’t think they _had_ taken Sanctuary yet after all. By all accounts, there were quite a few squads on the move to the north west. It worried him; Sanctuary wasn’t a well defended place, and they wouldn’t need _that_ many troops to take it over. Were they planning to make it another outpost, like the way they’d taken Quincy? It would put them in a good position to start looking at Nuka World, and start expanding down that way.

 

He wanted to get a message to Preston to warn him to be ready, but didn’t see how it would be possible without going there in person, through all the Gunners. Still, if they hadn’t taken Sanctuary, there was a good chance that there were more settlements not yet under Gunner control, too - maybe they could use the Minutemen frequency to warn Sanctuary. It would be unencrypted and the Gunners would almost certainly be listening, but it would definitely fuck up their plan either way. It was a glimmer of hope, and it would have been great to be able to tell Casey about it. He wondered idly where Casey was, what he was doing, hoped he was safe and that his plan was coming together.

 

After about an hour, Tom picked up his paper and frowned at it.

 

“Let’s see, what. Do. We. Got. Blood leaf, mutfruit, brain fungus, silt bean, wild corn, carrot flower, tarberry, and thistle. All plants. All used by multiple call signs.”

 

“Is it the message type? Blood leaf for weather alerts, thistle for troop movements…?”

 

Tom frowned. “Could be, hold on…” He scanned the paper again. “Yeah, yeah… Here’s one giving an order, and they used mutfruit at the start… And here’s another, look. ‘Mutfruit, mutfruit, Charlie Tango… Collect noisemakers from Donut Square. Exchange Nuka Cherry for bouquet’. What the synth-lovin hell does that mean?”

 

“‘Meet raider group outside Diamond City, pay them a hundred caps for each missile’,” MacCready translated. “‘Donut’ is a reference to Mayor McDonough,” he added, with a grin.

 

“Name, or shape? Either works. Okay, okay, now we’re cooking… Let’s see… ‘Silt bean, silt bean, all points be advised, bloodbug at BTB’. I’m guessing they don’t mean an actual bloodbug.”

 

“That’ll be a hostile spotted,” said MacCready. “‘Bloodbug’ is Brotherhood, specifically a Vertibird, and BTB is the Beantown Brewery.”

 

“‘Bloodbug’, I like it, I _like_ it! These cats are good at names. They got one for us?”

 

MacCready made a face. “Yeah, but you won’t like it,” he said. “They don’t tangle with you guys often, so I never heard it more than once or twice, and not on the radio.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“It’s RadRoach. Rail Road, Rad Roach… You get it.” To his amazement Tom burst out laughing.

 

“RadRoach! I love it,” he spluttered. “Because we work in the dark and scatter when you turn on the light, right?” He spread his fingers like an explosion, to represent radroaches fleeing in all directions.

 

“Yeah, that too I guess,” said MacCready, smiling at Tom’s amusement.

 

They worked through the list and when they’d figured out what each plant name signified, Tom called Desdemona and Deacon over and they explained what they’d discovered.

 

“Hmm…” she said. “We can work with this. They’re not exactly professionals, I’m pretty sure we can fudge something and make it believable. Deacon, I’m putting you in charge of interference. MacCready, you help him translate it into Gunner-speak. You said you need to make your way to Sanctuary, right?”

 

MacCready nodded.

 

“Good. I’ll have Tom take a look at one of our ham radio units and unencrypt the Gunner frequency, and you and Deacon can take it and send messages as you go. I don’t want anyone tracking the signal back here.”

 

“Good plan, boss. Then we can take a look-see, use some real stuff to make the bullshit believable,” said Deacon.

 

“Thanks Desdemona, I really mean it,” said MacCready. Even if she had refused to do anything else, the radio messages had given him a lot to work with. She smiled.

 

“Just you tell Charmer he better get his ass back here as soon as he’s done with all this,” she said. “I want everything he has on the Institute. Oh and while we’re on it, once you’re outside these walls, don’t use ‘Charmer’, just his real name. Got it? We can’t afford to have anyone figure out that he’s connected to us.”

 

“Yes ma’am, you got it.”

 

Tom messed with the radio and checked that it received the unencrypted Gunner signal, and handed it to Deacon; to MacCready’s surprise, Glory approached them as they made for the exit.

 

“Hey, Mac,” she said, and threw him a .308 rifle and a couple boxes of bullets. He caught them easily. “It’s on loan,” she said with a meaningful look. “I want that back in one piece, with interest on the ammo.” He grinned at her, and her scowl softened. Only a touch, but it did.

 

“Thanks Glory.”

 

“Thank me when you give it back.”

 

~*~


	15. Million Times Hotter than TNT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carries more wallop than uranium - when she kisses, there’s no hitch; zero power she turns on a switch, Atom Bomb Baby 
> 
> In which MacCready and Deacon get acquainted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so here I am again, for which you have AO3 user The_Pandora to thank! As I replied in my comment to them, I've been too unavoidably busy to work much on Mister, but hopefully I'm back now. I just hope people still read Fallout fanfiction... Thank you if you're reading this for coming back!

MacCready had expected Deacon to chatter the whole way, but the agent was mostly quiet as they made their way through the Commonwealth and back north and west toward Sanctuary. The ham radio was not exactly portable, and they had to break it down and carry a few pieces each to transport it, but they managed to make it work. They started with the patch of Gunner territory just to the south west of Bunker Hill; the same place MacCready had found himself captured and frogmarched almost all the way to Quincy and his death a few short weeks ago. Deacon wanted to know if most of the personnel there would be likely to have been posted to one of Casey’s settlements, or be on their way to Sanctuary, but MacCready shook his head.

 

“Nah. The closest of the settlements is County Crossing, and I doubt they will have taken such a small one,” he said. “Plus this is their only territory in Cambridge. Baker won’t want to leave it unguarded, or the raiders will move in.”

 

Deacon nodded thoughtfully. “So you would say this place is of strategic importance to the Gunners? Good to know.”

 

“Are we going in?”

 

Deacon shook his head. “Not directly, but I’d like to know how many men they have here.” MacCready opened his mouth to ask how Deacon planned to get close enough to find out, and shut it again as the agent pulled his shirt over his head and off, and tossed it to him. MacCready caught it out of reflex alone and blinked, belatedly spinning on his heel as Deacon stripped off his pants as well.

 

“Um.”

 

“Relax. I know I’m hot but try to contain yourself, Mac.”

 

“You’re going in naked?”

 

Deacon’s easy laugh made him uncomfortable. “Sure, I’ll shock ‘em into telling me what I wanna know. You can turn around again now.”

 

MacCready did so cautiously, relieved to see that Deacon was dressed again. He frowned. “Where’d you get that?” he asked, pointing at the Gunner uniform Deacon was now wearing.

 

Deacon looked amused. “Well, see, it’s like this. I was in Boston Common this one time and I was sneaking past the Pond and I sneezed, right - ”

 

“Okay, okay, I get it,” said MacCready, confusion melting quickly into irritation. “Stupid question. Moving on.”

 

“You don’t wanna hear about how I traded Swan a bunch of rocks for this Gunner uniform? Suit yourself. It’s a great story, although on reflection I think _he_ got the better end of the deal.” Deacon lifted one arm and gave a distasteful sniff. “Ew.”

 

“So what’s your plan?” MacCready asked, hoping he could get Deacon to drop it. He was beginning to remember how much it irritated him the way Deacon’s manner always made it seem as though he was laughing at you. It really didn’t help when he actually _was_ laughing at you.

 

“Casey wants interference, right? Then interference he shall have.” With no further explanation, Deacon pulled the bandana up over his nose and mouth. “Stay here,” he commanded, voice slightly muffled now. “If I’m not back in five minutes, just wait longer.”

 

MacCready shook his head as he watched Deacon start out over the bridge, with the precise amount of swagger in his gait that MacCready would have expected from a typical Gunner. Like he owned the place, but suspected treachery at any moment. 

 

He ducked back behind the bridge just far enough that he could still peer across it, and reached for his borrowed rifle as he watched Deacon’s progress. Looking down the scope, he watched Deacon raise a hand as a head popped up over the barrier. His trigger finger tightened as a .44 was pointed at Deacon’s head, but it relaxed again when he saw Deacon’s reaction. Through body language alone, and even from behind, the message was clear: _put that fucking gun away before I make you eat it_. The .44 was quickly withdrawn, and MacCready grinned in spite of himself. He might find Deacon irritating, but he was damn good at what he did.

 

A softer, more typically-Deacon approach would probably have got his head blown off, but the agent clearly knew enough about Gunners to know that they respected one thing - aggression. Be the bigger bully, and the rest would kowtow. MacCready couldn’t help but be impressed. No wonder Desdemona used him for undercover work, and basically let him do whatever he wanted. He lowered his rifle as Deacon and the Gunner went inside, but kept a close watch for any activity.

 

He didn’t have to wait long - his cigarette was still burning when the door opened again. Deacon came striding out looking pissed off, and MacCready had to fight a deeply buried instinct to try to hide from him. Deacon didn’t drop the act until he was all the way back across the bridge, and out of sight of the Gunner post.

 

“All right,” he said, flashing a sudden grin. “They got four guys in there. Total. Everyone else is marching northwest.”

 

Only four? That was good news, and bad; it meant that Baker had limited personnel, and was pulling everyone in. On the other hand, it meant that they might find it difficult to get to Sanctuary without running into scattered bands of marching Gunners.

 

“They got some concerns about a nearby raider gang,” Deacon continued. “One of them has a feeling the others were seen marching away, and they think Tower Tom is gonna make a move. Could be paranoia, but we can use it.”

 

“So we may not need to do anything,” said MacCready. Deacon grinned.

 

“We may not _need_ to, but I like to think that if a job is worth fucking up, it’s worth fucking it up properly.”

 

“What did you have in mind?”

 

“Tell Tower Tom that Sinjin is making a move on the Cambridge Gunners,” said Deacon.

 

“And how do you plan to deliver that message without getting your head blown off?” MacCready asked.

 

Deacon feigned a hurt expression. “Mac, I’m disappointed,” he said. “Do you really think I have a Gunner disguise, but not a raider one?”

 

~*~

 

An hour later, MacCready glared at Deacon. Deacon gave an apologetic half shrug. They knelt next to each other, hands on their heads, on the floor of the BADTFL office as Tower Tom’s right hand man, Gouge, leaned back on a desk and lit a cigarette. He had pulled off his mask to reveal a face that had been painted to look like a skull. MacCready was sure he remembered a similar skull painted on Tower Tom’s face, the one time he and Casey had tangled with the man himself.

 

“And you expect me to believe you’re defecting from Sinjin’s gang?” Gouge asked. The words sent the smoke from his mouth in all directions as he spoke. “Just like that?” Deacon nodded.

 

“Yeah man, I told you. That asshole killed Veronica,” he said, voice quivering with barely-contained emotion. An emotion MacCready knew for a fact he didn’t feel. “Listen, we don’t care what you do with us - ” at this, MacCready shifted uncomfortably on the floor next to him - “but you gotta get Sinjin, man. Tell him Benny sent you.”

 

“And where is Sinjin now?” Gouge asked.

 

“He’s on his way to the Gunner outpost near Bunker Hill,” Deacon sniffed. Gouge frowned.

 

“Why?”

 

MacCready watched out of the corner of his eye as Deacon lifted his head and stared at the raider. “You haven’t heard?”

 

Gouge was growing impatient, MacCready could tell. He hoped Deacon wouldn’t push the man too far. “Heard what?” Gouge asked.

 

“Sinjin’s movin’ on the place,” said Deacon. “Gunners’ve upped and gone, mostly. No idea why but Sinjin said he wants to take it while the taking’s good. Seems like a good opportunity to grab some territory, man. I bet Tom would love that, especially as it’s so close to Bunker Hill.”

 

Gouge stared at him. “They’ve left it undefended,” he repeated. Deacon nodded.

 

“Yeah, some Minuteman shit I think.” They watched as Gouge nodded thoughtfully.

 

“I heard there was somethin’ big goin’ down,” he said. “And you say Sinjin’s making his move?”

 

“Yeah, that’s what he said. Figured information like that might be useful to you.” Deacon sniffed again; he sounded exhausted and emotionally drained. If MacCready hadn’t known better, he would probably have swallowed this story hook, line and sinker. He made a mental note never to trust another word out of Deacon’s mouth.

 

Deacon knew that Sinjin was the main threat to Bunker Hill; if they gave the Gunner territory to him, he would be free to do whatever he wanted with Kessler and her little town, something Casey would surely have wanted to avoid. If Tower Tom took over the Gunners’ place, it would mean that Sinjin’s attention would continue to be divided. And it looked like, in Tom’s absence, his deputy was eager to score some brownie points with the big boss. Hopefully his eagerness would win out over his caution.

 

Gouge looked at both of them, hard. “Suppose I believe you,” he said. “What do you want from this?”

 

Deacon shrugged. “Nothing. Just want to look into that sonofabitch’s eyes as he takes his last breath. I wanna take everything from him. _Everything_. Like he took everything from me,” Deacon finished, choking back a convincing sob. Just a heartbroken man out to avenge the death of his lover. Gouge nodded slowly.

 

“Alright. Then you two are coming with us,” he said. “Bull, let ‘em up. Get the others, we’re moving out now.”

 

MacCready looked at Bull, who reluctantly lowered his shotgun, and stood. Deacon did the same.

 

“Not so fast, you two,” said Gouge, and beckoned to the other raider. “Tie their hands.”

 

~*~

 

They trudged back toward Bunker Hill, Bull’s .44 pointed at their backs, after Gouge and the rest of Tom’s gang.

 

“Now what,” MacCready growled in a low voice.

 

“Relax, Bobby,” Deacon replied coolly. MacCready had told him to use that name in front of the raiders, as his surname might be known to them. “Gouge’s got this, Sinjin won’t know what hit him.”

 

“And after that?” MacCready demanded.

 

“After that, well. Let’s just hope he doesn’t kill us.”

 

“Great.”

 

They approached the Gunner outpost, and Gouge bent into a crouch and stopped at the mouth of an alley facing the building, waving the others to do the same. MacCready and Deacon obeyed, as did the rest of the gang.

 

“Looks like Sinjin ain’t here yet,” said Gouge quietly. “Looks like you’ll have to wait a while for your revenge, friend,” he added to Deacon, whose jaw tightened in response, but he nodded. “Okay,” Gouge continued. “On my signal we hit ‘em hard and fast, got it?”

 

“What about these two?” Bull asked. Gouge looked them both over.

 

“Untie ‘em,” he commanded, and raised a hand to forestall Bull’s obvious protest. “If they try anything, kill ‘em. As for you two,” he added, addressing Deacon and MacCready. “Prove yourselves and I’ll consider recommending you to Tom. He might even let you join us. Fuck me over, and you both get a fatal case of lead poisoning. Understand?”

 

MacCready nodded, saw Deacon do the same. Bull grumbled as he untied them; he clearly trusted them far less than Gouge. Honestly MacCready was surprised that Gouge was willing to go along with this on no evidence at all - clearly he was desperate enough to impress Tower Tom to risk it. MacCready’s hands were grabbed roughly, and he felt a cold blade slide between them, severing his bonds. He drew his hands back in front of himself and massaged the feeling back into his fingers.

 

“Give ‘em their guns,” Gouge commanded Bull, who did so, but not without a quick glance at him. MacCready accepted back the rifle Glory had lent him, glad that he wouldn’t have to either explain its loss or replace it for her. She scared him far worse than raiders.

 

“Alright, on three. One, two…”

 

~*~

 

MacCready simply stayed where he was; a rifle was no good up close. Deacon moved forward a little with the gang, but once they had killed the lone guard and entered the building he backed up and joined MacCready where he sat crouched in the alleyway.

 

“Aw, looks like they forgot about us,” he remarked, in a mock-disappointed voice. “Come on, let’s split before they remember.”

 

They moved out of sight and earshot of the building before setting up the radio again. Deacon turned the volume down quickly - there was a lot of shouting. He grinned at MacCready. “Looks like it worked,” he said, once they’d managed to make out what the Gunners were shouting about. Their one outpost in Cambridge had been hit by raiders, it seemed. MacCready grinned back.

 

“Well, we better make like a tree before they send the cavalry,” said Deacon, switching the radio off and packing it up again.

 

~*~

 

They managed to cause a little more chaos before the sun started to set: they’d flung a few grenades into Gunner territories as they passed, staying out of sight and only sticking around to make sure that reports went out over the radio. Once or twice Deacon had got on the radio himself and sent out a few messages about nonexistent radstorms blowing up toward the north west, synth and raider attacks on Gunner outposts along the highways, and one pretty good one about Swan rearing up out of his pond. Deacon chuckled darkly once they’d switched the radio off after that one.

 

“Won’t they know the signal didn’t come from the Common?” MacCready asked.

 

Deacon shook his head. “Nah. Too late to trace it now, even if they could. Well, I think that’s enough fun for one day, you wanna head up north?”

 

“You think that’ll be enough to distract them?” MacCready asked him, dubious. “They’re pretty persistent. Maybe we should send out a few more.”

 

“You’ll get sick if you eat all your candy at once,” said Deacon, with a grin. “Besides, we’re running out of time. We’re gonna have to walk through the night to get there as it is.”

 

Reluctant as he was, MacCready knew he had a point. “Okay, fine.”

 

With that, they turned north west, and began to walk as the sun sank below the horizon.


	16. Great Big Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't want to set the world on fire, honey, i just want to start a great big flame in your heart, darlin' I have only one desire, and that desire is you
> 
> In which Deacon has 18 CHA, and MacCready has a -1 to his Insight, but a +6 to his Perception

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Co-ordination, timing, what? #Shhhhh #retroactivecontinuity #streamofconsciousness #ineverlookbackdahhhling #itdistractsfromthenow
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has commented! And I'm sorry, I planned to have this chapter up a lot sooner but I couldn't make it work and had to walk away for a few days. It is quite a long one so I hope it makes up for the wait. :)  
> Comments and feedback always welcome!

They found the cabin Casey had spoken of without too much trouble, skirting far enough to the south of Sanctuary that they managed to miss most of the Gunner troops. The ones they didn’t miss, MacCready had wanted to take out - hard and fast.

 

“Come on, there’s like three of them,” he had protested as he watched them through the scope of his rifle, but Deacon had shaken his head.

 

“Interference only, remember?”

 

“As far as I know there’s nothing that interferes with someone’s plan like taking out some of their soldiers,” MacCready had complained, but shouldered his rifle.

 

“Listen, you getting us both killed will definitely _interfere_ with my plans for a nice long vacation after this, okay? We well and truly pissed in their sugar bombs yesterday, I think we can call it good. Let’s just kick back and wait for the cavalry, yeah?”

 

MacCready frowned. “If any are coming,” he said, mostly to himself. It wasn’t that he doubted Casey, but more that he had been let down a lot by people who owed him favours. Whoever Casey had gone to for help, MacCready hoped he had a backup plan in case they refused.

 

They reached the shack just before dawn, and took turns sleeping and watching; as the sun climbed the sky, MacCready’s gnawing concern hardened into outright worry. Where was Casey? Had his plan not worked? How long should he leave it before heading south for the church?

 

He heard Deacon yawn and stretch behind him, and then the flick of a lighter. “Anything?”

 

MacCready shook his head, not turning from the window. “Nope.”

 

“So what’s it like dating Charmer?” Deacon asked after a while. “I bet it involves a lot of desk fans.”

 

MacCready couldn’t help but smile at that. He glanced back over his shoulder at Deacon. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Just because we’re together doesn’t mean I get out of carrying a bunch of junk. If anything I get more of it.”

 

Deacon grinned back. MacCready got the uncomfortable feeling that he’d just given something away, though he couldn’t see what. Deacon, and indeed all of Casey’s friends, were well aware of the man’s love of useless crap. He turned from the window and narrowed his eyes. “Did you just…”

 

“Get something else out of you without you noticing? Eh, maybe a little. Nothing I didn’t already strongly suspect. Don’t feel too bad, it’s my stock-in-trade.”

 

It hit him - he had never actually said that he and Casey were an item while he was at the Railroad, just admitted that they were sleeping together. Now Deacon knew for sure it was an actual relationship, and not just a physical thing.

 

“I am never opening my mouth again when you’re around. Ever.”

 

Deacon waggled his eyebrows. “Won’t help you, I can read body language too,” he said. _Most_ of MacCready didn’t believe him.

 

“Anything else I should know about you, before it’s too late?”

 

“Well, let’s see,” said Deacon. “I can tie cherry stalks in knots with my tongue, I have a black belt in Krav Maga, I am the only person I know who can lick his own elbow, what else… I like good food, good wine, long walks on the beach - ”

 

“Is everything that comes out of your mouth a lie?” MacCready interrupted him.

 

“No. I really do like long walks on the beach,” said Deacon, leaning back in his chair with a sunny grin. MacCready shook his head.

 

“Tell me about you,” said Deacon, leaning forward again. “What makes you tick, what gets you out of bed in the morning? I’m intrigued.”

 

“There probably isn’t much you don’t already know or couldn’t work out for yourself,” said MacCready acidly.

 

Deacon shrugged. “Probably not,” he agreed. “But I wanna hear it from you. It’s always interesting to hear what people really want to believe is true about themselves.”

 

MacCready sighed. “Fuck off, Deacon,” he said, without any heat, and turned back to the window.

 

“I thought you weren’t allowed to curse,” said Deacon with mirth in his voice. MacCready lifted an arm above his shoulder and flipped him off without looking; to his mild annoyance it only made Deacon laugh.

 

~*~

 

Deacon joined him at the window as the began to sink back down into the west. “I’ve heard of fashionably late, but this is borderline rude,” he said, leaning next to MacCready on the sill. “What if we had other plans?” Deacon handed him a lit cigarette; he accepted it with a nod, but said nothing.

 

They smoked in silence for a while. MacCready chewed his lip.

 

“I’m calling it,” said Deacon into the silence about an hour later, making MacCready jump. “He has for sure stood us up.” MacCready rounded on him.

 

“No he hasn’t,” he snapped. “It’s just taking him a little longer than he’d hoped, is all.” He wished he felt as certain about this as he sounded. Deacon regarded him wordlessly for a moment; he was still for so long that MacCready began to think he was about to fly into a rage, or walk out. After a long pause, Deacon took off his sunglasses.

 

“Mac… You said he told you twenty-four hours, right? It’s been closer to thirty. It’s past midday. I’m sure he’s fine, but we should really head out for the church like he said. He may even be there already.” There was a distinct lack of bullshit in Deacon’s voice and words, and this worried MacCready probably more than anything. He opened his mouth to reply, and shut it again, cocking his head to one side - what was that sound?

 

Deacon seemed to have heard it too, and they both moved to to window. It was a low buzzing, that sounded almost like -

 

“A Vertibird?” Deacon breathed, squinting out south over the scrubland. MacCready craned his neck, and then he saw it too. He picked up his rifle and stood back from the window, squinting down the scope.

 

“What are the Brotherhood doing out this way?” He wondered aloud. “They never come this far north.”

 

“I don’t wanna know,” said Deacon. He put his sunglasses back on, and left the window to begin packing up the few things he’d pulled out of his bag. “Come on, Mac, we gotta split. Gunners are bad enough on their own, and the Brotherhood are the worst party-crashers, like, _ever_. They never even bring a bottle.”

 

MacCready hadn’t moved, but was still watching the Vertibird as it buzzed its way over the Wastes. It seemed almost to be heading in their direction.

 

“Deacon…”

 

“Was that my ‘I’m kidding’ voice? Maybe it sounded too much like my ‘I’m kidding’ voice. I’ll workshop it. Anyway, I am totally _not_ kidding, for once, Mac. We have to get out of - ”

 

“Wait.” Was that…?

 

“Casey,” he breathed, lowering the rifle and staring, open-mouthed, at the approaching Vertibird. Deacon came back to the window and looked out.

 

“What?”

 

“Look,” said MacCready, handing him the rifle and pointing. “It’s Casey!”

 

“Mac…” Deacon began dubiously, but fell silent. He pushed the rifle away and produced a pair of binoculars. “Holy shit,” he breathed as he peered at the Vertibird. As they watched, it approached the shack and landed about fifty feet from it, and a familiar figure jumped out as soon as the thing touched down. MacCready was already out of the door.

 

Casey grinned as he saw Bobby running towards him, and opened his arms wide; they crashed together in a hug that knocked the breath out of both of them.

 

“Casey,” said MacCready into his shoulder, as soon as he could breathe again. “What the hell…?”

 

“Sorry I’m late,” said Casey, his words muffled by Bobby’s duster. He pushed him away to arm’s length and looked at him. “I was worried you wouldn’t wait this long.”

 

Bobby looked past him at the two figures in Power Armor that were still standing by the Vertibird. “You called in the Brotherhood?” He asked. Casey shrugged, and gave a lopsided grin.

 

“Who else do you know who has enough firepower to take on the Gunners?” He asked.

 

“How the hell did you convince _them_ to help?” Bobby asked, dumbfounded. Casey shrugged.

 

“I told Maxson the Gunners were making a grab for control of the Commonwealth,” he said. “He agreed that it was an issue that needed addressing. That, and I did them a favour a while back. Deacon,” he finished, as the Railroad agent joined them, shaking his head and grinning.

 

“What the fuck, man,” he said, smile never slipping as he took Casey’s hand and shook it. “No-one said anything about Brotherhood. If I’d known they were coming I would have made a cake.”

 

“I’m sorry to spring them on you,” said Casey, apologetically. “I didn’t even tell Bobby, it was too dangerous.”

 

Deacon laughed. “If this is some kind of setup,” he began - Bobby heard the veiled threat under his jovial tone.

 

“I swear it’s not,” said Casey, keeping his voice light. “You should know by now that I’m on your side on that issue but if it’ll help, I have some interesting information that might convince you. I can tell you about it now, if you like?”

 

Deacon peered over his sunglasses at the Knights. “Right now?”

 

“Sure.” Casey turned back to the Knights, and waved them over; MacCready saw Deacon shuffle uneasily, but Casey just told them to go stake out a perimeter and stand guard. They looked at each other and nodded, and stumped off to do as they were asked. MacCready watched them go; their Power Armor was kept in better condition than Casey’s, and they didn’t make nearly as much noise as they walked.

 

“Okay. There’s a place just off the coast,” Casey began in a low voice, when he was sure that the Knights were out of earshot. “You can reach it by boat, it’s north east of the Commonwealth. Find the Nakano residence north of Parsons, they have a boat you can use. I have a contact who is willing to take as many packages as you can send.”

 

Deacon’s eyebrows shot up - it was the first time MacCready had ever seen the man genuinely surprised. “Really,” he said after a moment. “You realise that this sounds way too good to be true, right?”

 

Casey nodded. “I know, but I can take you there once all this is done. Once you see it for yourself you’ll understand. I don’t want to say too much more here, but do you think you can just put your feelings about the Brotherhood to one side for a day or so and help me rescue the settlements? I really need everyone to work together on this one.”

 

Deacon regarded him for a moment; he seemed to be searching Casey’s face for something. If he found it, he said nothing. Eventually he shrugged. “The more the merrier, right?”

 

Casey beamed. “Great. Okay, there are more Vertibirds on the way, so let me explain the plan.”

 

~*~

 

More Vertibirds had arrived as Casey had said, bringing Brotherhood Knights and weapons; three more to be exact. Deacon and MacCready exchanged looks. MacCready could tell the Railroad agent didn’t like this any more than he did. If Casey wasn’t so stubbornly proud, he could have taken Shaun up on his offer. Then they wouldn’t have had to bring the Brotherhood in at all, but Casey had made up his mind and that was that. Besides, Deacon had been twitchy enough about the Brotherhood - if the Institute had shown up they wouldn’t have seen him for dust.

 

Even before the other Vertibirds had arrived, Casey had sent MacCready out on recon; he had spent the last hour before dusk watching Sanctuary through the trees from the other side of the river. Patrols of Gunners circled the island but never crossed the water - good to know. They’d set up a bunch of barricades all over the settlement, all facing out; clearly Baker was expecting a fight. Only Clint and a couple of the other Gunners had Power Armor, and it was closer in condition to Casey’s sets than the shiny Brotherhood ones. Also good to know.

 

The bridge was heavily guarded, though he knew Casey would already have suspected as much. It didn’t matter, they were planning to hit it from all sides. He had been instructed to watch for weaknesses, gaps in their defence - when Casey had asked him to do this he had shrugged, knowing there probably wouldn’t be any. Casey had also told him to see if he could discover where the settlers and their friends were being held. He hadn’t added ‘if any of them are still alive’, but MacCready had heard it anyway. Fortunately, he’d heard a commotion coming from one of the houses nearest his position - as he watched, he saw a Gunner emerge from the house yelling angrily, his face covered in blood. He grinned. At least someone was giving as good as they got. His money was on Cait.

 

He’d gone back to the shack to report; Casey listened thoughtfully. The Gunners had more in terms of numbers, but the Armor was hard to argue with. MacCready hoped it would be enough.

 

When he’d told Casey about the house, Casey had grinned. “Good,” he said. “We can add a few more to our numbers then.”

 

“How do you plan to get them out?”

 

Casey winked. “Quietly.”

 

The sun was fully dark when they moved out. The Knights were to travel in twos or threes to points just beyond the river all around Sanctuary. Two were to take a Vertibird up once the fighting started, to menace the Gunners from above. Casey had warned them against using the minigun because there were so many settlers in the place - the ‘Birds were more for show and intimidation than anything else. They could take potshots with their rifles if they could get a clear enough shot. Deacon was to take the far side of the island and send up a flare once he was in position. At this point Casey would sneak down to the house containing the hostages while MacCready covered him, and free as many as he could, arming them on the way out. While he was doing that, the Knights were to attack from their positions, dividing the Gunners’ attention.

 

“If anyone gets a clear shot on Baker,” Casey had told everyone, “Take it. But not before Deacon’s signal, we don’t want them to know we’re there before we’re ready to attack.”

 

Casey and MacCready crept to their position and waited. MacCready looked down the scope of his rifle and swept his gaze over the settlement; as he did so, he saw Baker emerging from Casey’s house and a wave of rage broke over him. The man had been living in Casey’s house. Going through his things, reading his magazines, drinking his beer… Bobby had to force himself to relax his trigger finger, even though Baker’s head was right in the centre of his crosshairs. It would be so _easy_.

 

“Anything?” Casey asked him, and the murderous wave subsided a little.

 

“No. You ready?” Bobby asked him. He had been biting the inside of his cheek, he realised; he touched his tongue to the area and tasted blood.

 

“As I’ll ever be,” came Casey’s reply. “Listen, you be careful okay? Stay here if you can, don’t get tangled up in it. You’re better at a distance anyway. Just stick to the plan, and cover me.”

 

MacCready had no intention of crossing the river into Sanctuary, and he told Casey so. Casey frowned.

 

“Good,” he said. “I don’t want Baker getting ahold of either of us.” They both looked up as a flash of red light shot up into the sky on the other side of the island - a shout of warning came from the settlement, and a squad of Gunners began to move toward the source. “That’s my cue,” said Casey. He turned to Bobby and kissed him roughly. “Don’t die.”

 

“I won’t if you don’t,” Bobby told him. He directed his gaze toward the river as Casey stalked towards it, keeping low and taking advantage of the Gunners’ distraction to creep over to the house containing the settlers. More flashes of red light lit up the settlement, but these were from laser rifles; out of the corner of his eye MacCready saw knots of Brotherhood Knights come crashing in on all sides and begin engaging the Gunners, but he didn’t dare take his gaze from the path ahead of Casey.

 

There were three armed Gunners positioned around the house - one at the front behind a makeshift barricade and two at each of the back corners. As Bobby watched, Casey disappeared into thin air - a few seconds later the Gunner closest to where he’d been scrabbled in gurgling horror at the gash that opened in his throat, spilling gouts of blood all over himself and the ground. He collapsed and twitched a few times, and lay still. Bobby looked nervously at the remaining rear guard Gunner - she was craning her neck over toward where two Brotherhood groups were making their way toward Casey’s house. She hadn’t seen her companion go down, and the noise from the fight erupting in the middle of the settlement was enough to cover any sounds he made as he died.

 

MacCready toyed with the idea of shooting her in the head, but decided against it; two dead guards were twice as likely to be noticed as one. He had to give Casey time to get everyone out. If it looked like she was going to investigate, he decided, he’d kill her. The door to the house opened, and shut itself again - good. Casey was inside. It shouldn’t take him long to free and arm the settlers.

 

The door opened again a few tense moments later and a familiar figure in a tricorner hat crept out, keeping low. MacCready grinned. Hancock moved to the front of the building and disappeared. Another figure stole around the back of the building toward the other guard - MacCready recognised Cait. There was something huge and spiky on her right hand - as he watched, she stole right up behind the other rear guard and drew her fist back.

 

“Oh-hoh, _man_ ,” MacCready said quietly to himself as he watched her drive the deathclaw gauntlet right into her back. He winced in sympathy and watched, awed, as Cait lifted the woman’s corpse into the air with one hand and slammed it back to the ground. She drew her boot back and gave it a good kick, and then spat on it for good measure. MacCready nodded approvingly.

 

The other settlers - MacCready recognised Preston, Piper, Nick and Dogmeat among them - moved around the back of the houses in both directions - rejoined by Hancock, who appeared wiping a knife on his coat. Well, that had taken care of the guards, then.

 

Casey was the last to leave the house, visible again now. His friends had disappeared around the back of the houses, and he moved to follow them toward the back of the settlement. As Casey approached the gap between two houses, MacCready’s heart leapt into his throat as he saw a patrol of three Gunners making for Casey’s position. They had seen something at the front of the house - must have been the corpse of the guard that Hancock had stabbed. Casey hadn’t seen the patrol, and would run right into them in a few seconds. Bobby didn’t even think - he got the closest of the three Gunners’ heads in his crosshairs and fired.

 

The Gunner’s head exploded, spattering the nearest of the other two in gore. Bobby spared a glance at Casey, who had heard the shot and stopped, and began moving back the other way toward the guard Cait had murdered, keeping low. _Good._ MacCready looked back at the other Gunners, discovering to his horror that they were now charging through the river right towards him.

 

To move and risk being seen, or run and get a headstart? He looked down the scope again, just as a flash of red from a laser rifle to his left lit up the two Gunners’ faces as they broke into a run - they were looking right back at him.

 

Cold panic flashed over his skin, settling at the back of his neck and digging in its claws. _How? How could they possibly know where he was? Why hadn’t they even stopped to register the death of their squadmate?_ These thoughts and others bounced manically around his brain as he pushed himself up off the ground and fled.

 

He didn’t have a plan, but he didn’t want to run away. He turned right, toward the back of the island, thinking that if he could lose the Gunners he could reposition somewhere else. He could hear them crashing through the scrub behind him and risked a glance - they were almost on him. The toe of his boot caught on something and he stumbled. He managed to stay on his feet, but the tiny delay was enough.

 

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and another grabbed his upper arm so hard it would leave bruises, holding him fast. Dimly it occurred to him that the last time he’d experienced a grip as strong as this, he’d been in the Institute.


End file.
